| Author | Topic: Superman in the 70s |
| Continental Op Member |
 posted September
07, 2002 03:28 PM 
<Although, Pasko contributed to several issues of Superman Family & DC Comics Presents in the early eighties, the last and only time he paid a visit to the Superman title, after a long absence, was to write the TFWOK back-up, "And Not a Drop to Drink." > Not so, India! The '82 Backup seems to have been his last, the Pesky One contributed at least twice more to the core Superman books following his stint as full-time writer. Although it would be more proper to place these two in the Eighties thread, it should be permissible enough for me to mention them here, since each is a DIRECT sequel to one of Pasko’s earlier stories. The last is ACTION COMICS #524 (October 1981), “If I Can’t Be Clark Kent, Nobody Can!” ... a follow-up to the big loose end from ACTION #500. Pasko finally decides to explain Whatever Happened To the Superman Clone that had been robbed of its powers. The clone decides that if it can’t replace Superman, it CAN replace... well, I think you can guess. Earlier came a story more solidly in the tradition of those "Too Weird For Words" body transformation-tales of the Weisinger era. Again, it was a direct sequel wrapping up one of Pasko’s loose ends, but this isn’t immediately obvious.
Guest Writer: Martin Pasko
* * * * * * "Let us begin our story at the BEGINNING," states the ever-logical narrator, as we see Superman returning to his adopted planet after one of those many undepicted outer-space missions. The Man of Steel has just recently begun working part-time for the Daily Planet again, and so is even more eager than usual to resume his civilian identity at the Galaxy Communications building for awhile. ("TV NEWSCASTING has its moments, but I’d rather be pounding a typewriter ANY day!") As Clark Kent, he soon strides past what appears to be a new receptionist while on his way into the Planet offices. This rather rude young man stops Clark and insists he has no business being on this floor... since HE, not any "Gladys", has been the Planet’s receptionist for years, and he certainly hasn’t heard of any "CLARK" Kent. In a moment of uncharacteristic aggressiveness, Clark merely gives this young man the brush-off and walks on past into the Planet’s city-newsroom anyway. (In one panel, Julius Schwartz appears to be hard at work in the background. And have we seen a real Gladys before?) What Clark sees next has him stunned in amazement. A freckle-faced, red-haired young lass (wearing a checkered green jacket and red bow tie) is conversing with a plump, middle-aged woman standing in the doorway of her office... the editor’s office. "What’s up, Chief?" inquires the redhead. The gruff lady editor barks, "JENNY... LOUIS... has either of you seen KENT anywhere?" "Not all morning, PENNY," answers the dark-haired, fashionable Louis. "But you know KENT... SHE will turn up eventually!" His mind reeling, Clark leaves quickly, before security has a chance to throw him out. "Has the WORLD gone CRAZY?" he thinks to himself on his way to the street outside. "JENNY Olsen instead of JIMMY Olsen... LOUIS LANE, not LOIS... PENNY rather than PERRY White... all talking about a FEMALE reporter named Kent? Am I DREAMING... LOSING MY MIND? Maybe this is some elaborate PRACTICAL JOKE... or a DELUSION induced by RED KRYPTONITE...?" Suddenly, a (female) window washer slips offan overhead ledge and plunges toward the sidewalk. Clark ducks into an alley, about to change his outfit, but the window washer is instead saved by... SUPERWOMAN! "SuperWOMAN?" gasps Clark. "This is TOO MUCH!" Not an older Supergirl, but a gender-reversed version of Superman himself, in an identical version of his costume (though the neckline rides a bit lower on hers, for obvious reasons... and actually, Superwoman, as the art depicts her, has a face pretty much identical to Lois Lane’s. This is probably more attributable to Chiaramonte's slightly muddy inks than Swan, whose crisp pencils usually took into account the variations in facial structure.) As Superwoman flies off, Clark decides that he must have somehow passed through a dimensional gateway on his way back to Earth, and entered a parallel world... an alternate earth where history had strange variations, much like the other Earths he and his fellow Justice League memebrs have encountered often enough in the past. "With an OBVIOUS DIFFERENCE... the MALE and FEMALE 'ROLES' are REVERSED! Here, my friends and I have COUNTERPARTS... of the OPPOSITE SEX! Thus, there’s NO Superman... but a SUPERWOMAN who is probably ALSO the MISS KENT I overheard her friends talking about!" Holy Sexual Confusion! Major Identity Crisis! To confirm his suspicion, he trains his super-vision on the JLA’s Satellite headquarters in orbit above the planet, and observes the roles reversed there as well. He sees a meeting in progress, with an attendance of Batwoman, (a female) Flash, Wonder Warrior, and "a BLACK CONDOR in place of the Black CANARY!" (What—there are no MALE canaries? Anyway, the sight of a long-blond-haired, male model Fabio-type wearing a more or less IDENTICAL version of Black Canary’s costume... minus the fishnet stockings, thankfully... strikes me as a little more "Village People" than it apparently does Superman. But then, he never seemed to think there was anything unusual about Vartox’s outfit either.) Superman flies into space seeking the gateway that will transport him back to his home universe, but instead finds himself crashing into an invisible, impenetrable super-barrier surrounding the planet’s outer atmosphere. Much as the Silver Surfer was once exiled on Earth by Galactus, Superman is sealed behind this barrier, which obstructs only him, but which even his super-strength cannot shatter. He quickly realizes that this is no natural occurrence and he may well have fallen into some kind of trap. The Caped Kryptonian decides to check the newspaper clippings in the "morgue" room of this world’s Daily Planet, to study this world’s history. (Remember, there was no Internet for this stuff back then!) As he’s about to fly in through the window, he overhears Jenny Olsen talking to CLARA Kent inside. Clara is dressed much like Clark, trademark blue suit and all. But just then, he notices SUPERWOMAN flying past on the horizon. What’s more, his x-ray vision confirms that Clara isn’t wearing any super-uniform beneath her clothing (Pervert!) and she isn’t a super-robot either. Apparently, she and Superwoman are two entirely separate people after all. Superman recalls that the JLAers have encountered minor variations like this before, yet he wonders if this trap might have actually been sprung by someone who doesn’t know Clara and Superwoman SHOULD be two halves of a whole... Through super-vision, he scans the Planet dossiers on a number of Superwoman’s arch-enemies: Leslie Luthor, Toywoman, Bizarress, and Mister Mxyzptlk. Soon, Superman decides that this has gone on long enough, and if what he suspects of this world’s nature is true, he may as well postpone the inevitable no further. Spotting Superwoman as she continues her patrol of the Metropolis skies, he flies up to introduce himself. Though she clearly recognizes him, she nonetheless seems surprised at his appearance... in fact, she’s ENRAGED that he would dare to show his face so boldly. After all, Superman is, as she yells out in anger, "THE MOST DANGEROUS OUTLAW THE EARTH HAS EVER KNOWN!" A brief struggle erupts, and Superwoman kicks him hard in the face with her (high-heeled) boots... so I guess the costumes aren’t QUITE identical, after all. Superman crashes into the side of a nearby skyscraper, leaving his bodily impression outlined in the wall behind him. "Sorry to DISAPPOINT you!" he calls out. "I’ll grant that your powers are EQUAL to MINE... but I still can’t bring myself to HIT you! THAT 'liberated' I’m NOT!" (Superman muses that it might be useless trying to overcome her anyway, if her powers are magical in origin as he suspects.) Almost as soon as he speaks, he receives a male opponent to contend with instead... as he is attacked by this Earth’s SUPERBOY. Rather than a younger version of himself, Superboy is a gender-bent version of his cousin Supergirl, with longish blond hair, red HOT PANTS, blue blouse and all! The Himbo of Steel stuns Superman with a vicious blow to the gut, and then both his opponents follow up with super-punches to opposite sides of his head. Superboy quickly slaps a fishbowl-style, clear "helmet" over Superman’s head, and then twists a nozzle at the "collar" to flood the bowl’s interior with Kryptonite gas. Not enough K is in the gas to kill him, but enough to keep him weak and helpless. As his enemies seize him by the arms, our hero passes out unconscious. (Continued) IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted September
07, 2002 06:02 PM
Damn... this is one bizarre story... IP: Logged |
| Continental Op Member |
posted September
08, 2002 02:52 PM
(Continued) When he awakens, still wearing the gas-filled helmet, Superman finds himself lying spreadeagled on the ground in the desolate Mojave Desert, his limbs chained to stakes pounded into the ground. Superwoman is gloating over him triumphantly. The Woman of Steel explains that, as Superman is too dangerous for an ordinary cell even without his powers, he will be kept imprisoned here, where no one can be tricked into helping him escape, while the international authorities prepare for his trial. He is to be charged with numerous "global super-crimes". Superwoman and Superboy have their own matters to attend to in the meantime, so the JLAers will take turns guarding him here until his trial. First up is Wonder Warrior, who seats himself atop a nearby rock as Superwoman flies away. (Wonder Warrior’s costume is another variation on the original... he still has a glowing magic lasso, and wears the tiara, bracelets, eagle chest emblem and star-spangled panties, but he also wears a full-body white leotard underneath to avoid showing as much bare skin as Wonder Woman does. And by the way, just as SuperWOMAN looks a lot like Lois Lane, Wonder Warrior sure looks just like SUPERMAN wearing a different costume. The face is almost exactly the same. Since no one comments on the resemblances, this is obviously not intentional... either Chiaramonte didn’t have it in him to make the faces unique enough, or the quality of printing back then muddied the art a bit too much for that kind of subtlety.) Thinking desperately for a means to free himself, Superman notices the sunlight glinting off his bubble helmet in a peculiar way, and gets an idea. He taunts Wonder Warrior about his long vigil ahead: "I hope you brought a good BOOK to read!" "Actually, I thought you might engage me in clever conversation," answers Wonder Warrior, who I sure hope isn’t trying to be flirtatious. "Like a CONFESSION of your CRIMES , for instance!" "Don’t hold your BREATH!" says Superman. "I’m just going to lie here and watch you get BORED out of your skull! Eventually, you’ll get SLEEPY! In fact, I’ll bet your eyelids are feeling HEAVY already... AREN’T they? Yes... EXTREMELY heavy... and every muscle in your body is SAGGING... you’re SOOO sleepy... " Wonder Warrior passes out, snoring (!), for Superman has used a combination of the reflected sunlight and his droning tone of voice to lull the Androgynous Amazon into a state of sleep-like hypnosis. It sure seems like this should be a much more difficult task than Pasko thinks, but never mind, it worked! Next, Superman slows down his heartbeat through concentration, to the point where it’s slow enough to simulate death. This lure one of the hungry buzzards circling overhead down to sniff him. As it lands on his chest, Superman jerks upright, smacking the buzzard right in the beak with his helmet! The enraged scavenger of the dead retaliates by pecking away at the helmet until it shatters, releasing the Kryptonite gas and restoring the Man of Steel’s strength. He bursts free of his chains and feels rejuvenated, as the terrified buzzard flies off. (Superman at least does feel bad for mistreating the poor dumb bird.) Suddenly, Wonder Warrior snaps out of his trance, and snares Superman in his magic lasso to prevent his escape. Anyone caught in the lasso is magically forced to obey the every command of whoever holds it. Fortunately, WW doesn’t have the chance to actually say anything, since Superman spins himself around at super-speed to “reel in” the lasso, yanking his captor close enough to be knocked out with one super-punch to the jaw. Moments later, Superman is flying off, determined to confront his TRUE enemy. (Say, why wouldn’t they have just bound Superman with the lasso in the first place, and commanded him NOT TO ATTEMPT ANY ESCAPE? Because there goes the rest of the story, I suppose.) Returning to the outskirts of Metropolis, Superman creates an oversized crayon (!), and uses it to write a message on a giant billboard, which I guess just happens to be blank. He suspects his foe has been watching his ordeal invisibly, and issues a challenge: I KNOW YOU ARE BEHIND WHAT'S
Despite his boasts, Mxyzptlk admits he’s at a loss to figure out how Superman realized he was responsible. The Caped Kryptonian explains that it was obvious early on... when he examined the files on Superwoman’s enemies, all his originally male foes were FEMALE, except for ONE. Mxyzptlk is so vain, that he considers himself too perfect to change even an IMAGE of himself in any way. (Plus, he didn’t know about Superman’s double identity either.) What’s more, the Man of Steel has realized that he ISN’T on a parallel world, but still on the REAL Earth, which Mxyzptlk has altered with his magical powers to its present state. Superman warns that it’s only a matter of time before he tricks Mxyzptlk into saying his own name backwards, thereby sending him back to Zrfff, and restoring the planet to normal when his magic goes with him. But why, he asks, did Mxyzptlk choose this kind of trap? Revenge, answers the hovering imp. Back in SUPERMAN #335, the Man of Tomorrow had helped him get back to his own dimension after he had been banished, and return in time to marry his seemingly beautiful fiancee, Miss Bgbznz. Instead of being grateful, Mxyzptlk was horrified enough to wish he had stayed banished, once he saw what Bgbznz really looked like. Superman protests. "But no marriage that takes place under FALSE PRETENSES is BINDING... at least, not on EARTH!" "Same in ZRFFF, thankfully!", says Mxyzptlk. "So I had mine ANNULLED! But I was still depressed... after discovering that the woman I loved was an ILLUSION!" Instead of popping some Prozac, he took to spying on Earth, and his depression turned to anger as he saw Superman’s romance with Lois Lane heating up. Jealous and miserable, Mxyzptlk decided to trap Superman on an Earth with NO Lois Lane, where he’d be too busy fleeing the super-heroes who hunted him to do anything about it. And now, he taunts, Superman will have to FIND him first if he wants out. With that, he begins to vanish in a puff a smoke. At super-speed, Superman pulls Wonder Warrior’s lasso out of the secret pouch in his cape (where he had stashed it following the desert battle earlier), and loops it around the still-fading Mister Mxyzptlk. Quickly, he commands him to rematerialize fully, and then say KLTPZYXM. Forced to obey, Mxyzptlk does as he is told, and disappears back to the Fifth Dimension. Instantly, Wonder Warrior fades out of the Mojave Desert, Batman has a ***** again back on the JLA Satellite, and the whole world is restored to its original condition, with no memory of its time under the gender-reversal spell. Everything is back to normal now that the pint-sized near-Deity has been banished back to his home dimension for 90 days. Flying back to Metropolis, Superman congratulates himself on outsmarting Mxyzptlk. "I’m sure it never occurred to him that just because he POSSESSES MAGICAL POWERS doesn’t mean he’s IMMUNE to magic... even from a magical weapon HE HIMSELF created!" Back at the Planet office, Clark Kent arrives, and almost swallows his tongue in shock when he sees a familiar MALE face. "Y-YOU!? Gasp! YOU’RE... LOUIS LANE!" Right, says the smartly dressed dark-haired man who turns to greet him, but how did he KNOW that? Just then good old LOIS Lane strolls up to introduce Clark to her "COUSIN Louis from Pittsdale." And gosh, Clark, what’s the matter? Choke! How ironic! And how WEIRD.
IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted September
08, 2002 05:00 PM
quote: O...M...G...
quote: Whatever Batman has caused my mind to race through its catalogue of unmentionable five-letter words. IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted September
10, 2002 04:33 PM
Oh how did I miss that? I have this story--it's another one that I rather like--but I somehow missed the fact that M.P. wrote it. I'll have to go back to my boxes and read some more... IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted September
16, 2002 06:32 PM
It's a poor carpenter who blames his tools, but part of the reason I missed those two Pasko stories (even though I remember them now) was that I used the GCD index to do an advanced search on Pasko and apparently didn't turn up those stories. But of course I should have exercised greater care and actually thumbed through every single comic book in my collection just to make sure--you never know he might have wrote Magilla Gorilla, afterall... That being said, I've done a little advance searching on Curt Swan to answer a question I raised for myself, re Swan's work on Action, in this post--
quote: I haven't investigated fully the information provided by GCD (some of these works might be ad copy or reprints), but Swan's first work on Action and for some time to come is NOT on Superman himself--rather on Tommy Tomorrow. Trusting in GCD, it looks like Swan pencilled every Tommy Tomorrow feature from issue 127, Dec. '48, thru 171, Aug. '52. After that Jim Mooney becomes the Tommy Tomorrow artist (and is best remembered as such). I would guess, without doing the research, that Swan then moved on to doing work for World's Finest and Jimmy Olsen. He makes a return to Action in issue 189, Feb. '54, doing the Superman feature. This would seem to be his first Superman work in Action. He then goes AWOL for a few more years before returning again as a cover artist (ie. drawing Superman, albeit on the cover) with issue 232, Oct. '57. He then continues his run as artist on either cover or Superman story (although usually only on the cover for most of these early years), missing only issue 353, July '67 (that was by Wayne Boring on both cover and lead story), and 356, Nov. '67 (this time Neal Adams ousted Swan on the cover--as he would do increasingly so in the late sixties and early seventies--while Boring provided the Superman story). The run as either story or cover artist continues from then on from 357 thru 473. To put this more simply, from my preliminary research, Swan credits on Action go like this: Tommy Tomorrow-- Superman cover and/or story artist (including covers for Supergirl
Giants in Action)-- *** Any corrections/additions to this information will be cheerfully
welcome. IP: Logged |
| Lee
Semmens Member |
posted September
18, 2002 06:50 AM
India Ink, I think you will find that the reason you missed some of the Pasko stories on the GCD advanced search, is because they would have been listed under either Martin or Marty Pasko. If you typed in "Martin" you would only have gotten the Martin Pasko stories listed, ergo for "Marty" only Marty Pasko stories. Minor distinction - but the search engine would not know they are the same person. What I would do in cases such as this (Bob or Robert Kanigher is a good example) would be to just type in "Pasko". IP: Logged |
| Continental Op Member |
posted September
18, 2002 02:36 PM
If you think that's bad, try to do a complete "all-in-one" search for Barry Smith. The punk had to go and change his name to Barry Windsor-Smith in the 80s, but the GCD is inconsistent in how they credit his early and later work, which makes doing a complete search pretty frustrating. (Not that that has much to do with Superman.) And oh, how I curse those Twinkies ads they list! IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted September
19, 2002 12:10 PM
Ah the hoops they make us go through... => IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted September
19, 2002 07:10 PM
It would be nice if GCD had some sort of sorting function where you could sort to categories--cover, story, or ad. In my ongoing Swan searches, Curt's best continuous record is probably on Jimmy Olsen. GCD has him doing every issue from 1 (Sept.-Oct. '54) - 117 (Jan. '69). And then 119 (April '69) - 132 (Sept '70). As well as the cover for the Giant, 140 (G-86, Sept. '71). Mind you most of those later issues in the sixties would be just covers. But trying to sort all that out would take up my whole day. IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted September
22, 2002 07:42 PM
Bump for Two Face 22. IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 01,
2002 02:01 PM
preparatory bump IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 01,
2002 02:32 PM
Alan Moore owes a lot to this comic. This is another one of those stories with Batesian moments that make me cringe, but it's not all bad. For starters, we have Swanderson art. "Whatever Happened to Superman?" Action Comics #428 (Oct, 1973) A great splash page shows Superman sweeping across the sky, bursting out of his own S-emblem, towards sky-tower skyscrapers whose tops are ablaze. Superman decides not to use super-breath to extinguish the fire, as such an action might cause the towers to sway too far. And here we have one of those "Editor's Notes" that I loved as a kid, telling us about the flexibility of skyscrapers and how they are designed to sway. (But not so much as when under the influence of super-breath.) Superman flies north and grabs an iceberg, with more interesting information presented for the young reader, regarding the fact that eight-ninths of an iceberg's bulk is underwater. An "ultra-swift return flight" sees Superman once again above the blazing towers with an iceberg that must be impervious to the usual "super-friction" of super-fast flight. He uses his heat-vision to melt the iceberg, dousing the fire with hundreds of gallons of water. Not far off, Jimmy is taking pictures of this feat from a Daily Planet helicopter, and Superman notices him doing so. A change of scene finds us witnessing the successful activation of the first WGBS communications satellite. Morgan Edge is congratulating Corey, the "top-notch space-engineer" who has overseen the project. Mention is made of Corey's dodgy past, the fact that he is an ex-convict who did time for sabotage. In a peculiar scene, we have Morgan Edge's hands resting on Corey's shoulders in a magnanimous gesture of affection. Edge is so far out of character as to be unbelievable. There's no explanation given for this. However, without this typically inconsistent Bates plot-point, we wouldn't have a man like Corey in charge of the WGBS satellite, and, far from being reformed, Corey is harbouring secret thoughts of hostility towards Superman. As he thinks of Superman, the hatred is plain on his face. CONTINUED... IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 01,
2002 03:45 PM
(Continuing with "Whatever Happened to Superman?") Superman flies through an open window and emerges from a storeroom a "split-second" later as Kent, just in time to run into Jimmy Olsen in the hallway. Superman is thinking about how worn-out he is leading a double life!? Jimmy is excited about a photograph in his hand, one he took of the sky-tower blaze earlier. Clark, looking at the photograph, makes a remark about how difficult it must have been to focus on Superman in action. Jimmy is stunned. Jimmy says, "You better have your eyes re-examined, Clark! There's no Superman in this picture!" Clark thinks Jimmy is joking, for Clark can clearly see Superman in the picture, above the skyscrapers with the iceberg. Clark asks Jimmy, "...Then what DO you see?" The reader sees the picture from Jimmy's point of view, and Superman is nowhere to be seen. Jimmy describes the photograph to Clark as he sees it: a thundercloud over the sky-towers dousing the fire with rain. In another very odd scene, Clark reaches his left hand out in front of Jimmy to grasp Jimmy's right wrist. Clark, with his fingertips on the TOP-SIDE of Jimmy's wrist(!), uses his super-sensitivity to measure Jimmy's pulse like a lie-detector. Jimmy apparently just accepts this rather intimate caress from his co-worker without comment! And what stopped Kent from using super-hearing to measure Jimmy's pulse, as we know he can do and has done? Anyway, Kent decides that Jimmy is telling the truth. Kent sees Superman and an iceberg in the photograph; Jimmy sees a thundercloud and rain. Jimmy thinks it is Clark who is joking around. After all, as he tells Clark, Superman has been missing for ten years now! (Yes, it sounds very much like the scenario in Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" Moore obviously borrowed much from this tale, including its title, from 1973.) Clark thinks someone has "hypnotized" Jimmy to prevent him from seeing Superman. Still pondering this, Clark stands before the elevator doors and presses the "up" button. While waiting for the elevator, his super-hearing detects trouble outside in the street below. Now, in yet another very odd scene, we have Clark running to the window so as to see what is going on in the street below! He leans out of the open window to clap eyes on a mounted police officer whose horse is going berserk. Maybe Clark forgot he had X-ray vision, but how did Cary Bates, Julius Schwartz, and Swanderson forget? CONTINUED... IP: Logged |
| RonaldHeld Member |
posted October 02,
2002 12:06 PM 
If someone could post a complete list of all of Curt Swan's art, either cover or interiors, I would appreciate it(more collecting) IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 03,
2002 04:41 PM
"Whatever Happened to Superman?" continued: Clark thinks: "This is a job for..." In the very next panel, Clark is no longer leaning out of the window; he has inexplicably resumed his position at the elevator doors, standing there as Steve Lombard appears from a doorway and calls out a greeting. "Thinking furiously," Clark engineers an escape from Lombard's presence. He uses heat-vision to short-circuit certain switches in the elevator controls, making the elevator doors open (even though the elevator is not yet at his floor). Then he steps through, pretending not to notice that the doors have opened too soon. He steps through the doors, ignoring Steve Lombard's protests. As Steve reaches the open elevator doors and leans over the edge to look, he hears Clark's voice trailing off down the shaft. (Remember this scene. We'll come back to it later.) Steve, gazing down into the blackness of the shaft, has tears in his eyes as he thinks about all the times he was cruel to Clark... At the bottom of the shaft, Clark is switching to Superman. Superman flies down to where the police officer's horse is going nuts, removing his cape as he does so. The horse is rearing up, but Superman uses his cape as a blindfold for the horse to try to calm the animal down. Then he takes off into the sky, horse, police officer and all, with the officer remarking, "Hey! How come we're flying?" Superman flies the horse and officer through the sky, the policeman freaking out all the while. Then the Man of Steel, after dropping his cargo at the "Metroduct Stables," races back to Steve Lombard and the elevator shaft to "bring Clark back from the dead." Steve and Jimmy are at the mouth of the shaft, looking down. Steve is inconsolable. Suddenly Steve and Jimmy hear Clark's voice calling for help. CONTINUED... IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 04,
2002 01:23 AM
To the regulars on the 70s thread... I went to the comic store today and they had Action Comics #411 (1972) on sale for six bucks. Comics like that are rare as hens' teeth around here, so I grabbed it. It has a Leo Dorfman lead story and art by Swan + Anderson. The cover has Superman holding his giant Fortress key, with people down below around the Fortress door who have erected "private property" signs. "The Day They Sold Superman's Fortress." It's a story that co-stars Supergirl in a somewhat demeaned role, and the basic rub is that Superman creates a real headache for himself by being pedantic about the law. I would like to do a synopsis/review of this quirky tale at some point. But, in the meantime, any thoughts? IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted October 04,
2002 03:59 PM
I have that comic but it's dim in my mind Aldous. I'll have to have another look at it. In the meanwhile, I hope you saw that "Whatever happened to Superman?" made it onto my Swanderson twenty-five list--back on page 3 of this thread, I think. Although I didn't really review the story back there--so your detailed summary is appreciated. I really love the cover for that story. I liked a lot of Nick Cardy covers (once I got used to his unique art style), but I think his Action covers were some of my favourites. IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted October 04,
2002 04:17 PM
In theory, a complete list of Curt Swan art is possible but it's a task that requires a lot of tedious searching. I was hoping that Curt Swan: a Life in Comics would be helpful in this regard. However, this is one area where the book does not offer much help. But the book is definitely well-worth having--just a beautiful thing to own. IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 05,
2002 01:27 AM
quote:
quote: I had to go back for a refresher, India. I must have read that post when I first joined the forum, yonks ago, but I forgot about it. You've already noted the connection between the two "Whatever Happened?" stories. I only recently acquired both "Whatever Happened?" stories. I wrote about the Alan Moore one on the 80s Superman thread. I have been interested in Nick Cardy recently, also. I was intending to say something about him. I never really knew who he was before, though I have really liked his work (eg. the Golem cover for one of my favourite stories, "Fury of the Energy Eater" in Superman #258) without actually being aware of the artist's name. I'm not overly familiar with his work, but I'll go out on a limb and suggest that the cover to that comic book I mentioned, Action #411, is Cardy. Some of the Cardy covers I've seen have impressed me with their simplicity. They have a lot of impact because of this. There is a Superman or Action cover (I can't remember the issue number at the moment) which has Clark changing to Superman with an aeroplane falling from the sky in the background. He is thinking, "This is a job for..." It's a deceptively simple drawing, very pleasing to the eye. In Action #411, there is also another Dorfman story about a budding Superman love affair that ends in tears. Dorfman liked to put Superman through the emotional wringer, I have noticed. There is another great Swanderson story I want to review (a doomed love affair) which I'm pretty sure is Dorfman. Superman finds the love of his life only to discover they are genetically incompatible, and have no future together. I just have a vague recollection it's Dorfman. But I know the comic well -- I just haven't read it for a very long time. IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 05,
2002 05:58 AM
quote: Found the comic. Action Comics #395 (1970). "The Secrets of Supeman's
Fortress." IP: Logged |
| India
Ink Member |
posted October 05,
2002 04:38 PM
From the thread about the book of the same name... quote: Too bad, I didn't know about this slipcase version of the book. I don't know if--having already bought the softcover version--I can financially justify buying that version (if I can even locate it), but maybe if I find it on sale somewhere I'll get it. The answers to RonaldHeald's queries would seem to be in there. If I ever do get that slipcase, then, I'll put up the info therein--if someone hasn't already put up the info by that time. The Cardy cover with Clark becoming Superman is also from Action around the same time as "Whatever Happened to Superman." It's another one of those "emblematic" covers. These kinda harkened back to an earlier age, back in the forties when Superman had lots of covers that didn't necessarily represent a story inside, but just something about Superman. The Batman in World's Finest Archives vol. 1 reprints a lot of these kinds of forties covers. It seems to me that most Cardy covers for Superman (eg. that Galactic Golem cover) usually were scenes out of the story inside, while often the Cardy covers for Action were emblematic. Just one of many ways that the two titles were distinguished from each other. IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 05,
2002 09:13 PM
Then there are the covers that MISrepresent the story inside. There are plenty of those in the DC canon. This is from the letter column ("Where the Action is") in Action #411 (1972):
quote: I can't remember a time when I didn't just take in my stride the fact that DC comic book covers had misleading (dishonest?) scenes. Yet, I can certainly see how it would really @#$% someone off. It was always just something I accepted. I never thought much about it. IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 05,
2002 09:16 PM
That letter writer's name was Illona R. Arywitz. Sorry about the typo. IP: Logged |
| Aldous Member |
posted October 07,
2002 04:56 AM
Continuing "Whatever Happened to Superman?" Steve thinks he's hearing the voice of a ghost, but Jimmy is looking UP the shaft and knows better. Inside the elevator shaft, barely above the open doors, Clark is nervously holding onto the elevator cable. Clark, st-stuttering w-wildly, explains he jumped up and grabbed the cable at the last moment, as he fell into the elevator shaft -- and he was so s-scared he couldn't speak up till now. Steve and Jimmy blithely accept this, despite the fact (as I mentioned earlier) that Steve distinctly heard Clark's voice disappearing DOWN the shaft. Oh well -- for a No-Prize I'll put it down to the effects of echo... Later on, in the afternoon, Clark is looking at an artist's impression of the policeman's horse from the disturbance earlier. The TV studio employee with him, Hank, explains that this is what dozens of eyewitnesses reported seeing: the policeman's horse sprouting wings and flying off. The witnesses certainly didn't see any "Superman." Hank thinks Clark is crazy for mentioning Superman: "It's been ten years since anyone's seen Superman!" On the floor Clark sees a copy of yesterday's Daily Planet, with a headline that reads: "Superman Wipes Up Flood." He picks up the paper and presents it to another studio employee, Sandy. He asks Sandy to read the headline of the paper out loud. Sandy, reading the headline, says, "Phenomenal Fireball Dries Up Flood." Clark, once again pushing the boundaries of intimacy and inter-staff relations, holds onto Sandy's wrist as she reads the headline! Sandy appears not to notice! But Clark has felt enough to confirm that Sandy is not lying. As he performs super-feats around the globe, Superman finds he is nonexistent in the eyes and minds of the inhabitants of the entire world. No matter what he does, everybody sees some sort of "alternative" phenomenon -- anything but the Man of Steel on the job. Superman, feeling discouraged, flies "grimly" toward the Metropolis State Prison. He believes only one man has the genius to mass-hypnotise Earth's entire population: Lex Luthor. But, standing four feet or so in front of Luthor, looking directly at him through the bars of the cell, Superman finds that he is as "invisible" to Lex as he is to the rest of the world. Superman begins to doubt his own sanity... CONTINUED... IP: Logged |