posted July 12, 2001 02:45 PM    

What next, I wonder, Krypto the Superdog?

posted July 12, 2001 03:16 PM    

------------------
Ink's links:

for Book of Oa--
http://www.glcorps.org/book.html

for DC golden age sites--
http://www.best.com/~blaklion/dc_links.html

for Superman--
http://theages.superman.nu/

posted July 18, 2001 04:15 PM       

Plus you had Shooter-Grell on Superboy

Rogers-Engelhart on Batman

Dillin-Conway(?) on JLA and real team-ups with the JSA.

Byrne-Claremont on X-Men. The ONLY time I've every followed that title! Nuff Said!

posted July 18, 2001 04:36 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
http://superman.nu/starwinds-howl/

---

Cool!

------------------
Cmdr. Leonard McCoy: Where are we going?

Admr. James T. Kirk: Where they went.

Cmdr. Leonard McCoy: Suppose "they went" nowhere.

posted July 30, 2001 08:02 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
In my own list of sixties stories would most definitely appear the three-part Action story of Superman flying to the end of time--stopped by the Time Trapper from returning to the present. As this is off the top of MY head I can't give issue numbers, but it was around 1968 I think...

I remember going to Keller's Drugs with my Dad and picking up this Action and groaning when I realized it was continued--I hated continued comics, hated hated them. I then got the conclusion--BUT, because drugstores were so unreliable for having every issue (which is why I so hated continued comics, because I rarely got to read the end of the story or sometimes the beginning!), I never got the middle part--because of all things this was a THREE parter and THEN I pretty much gave up on comics all together for a couple of years.

It was only years later that I actually did get that second part of the story.

I know that Cary Bates wrote it and Curt Swan drew it, but I'm not sure who inked it (Jack Abel???).

---

posted July 30, 2001 08:12 PM    

As Neil Gaiman's Sandman came to an end, there was a Wake held. In Chapter Two (issue 71) "In Which a Wake is Held" (by Gaiman, Michael Zulli, Todd Klein, Daniel Vozzo & Digital Chameleon), on page 22, first panel, Clark Kent, the Batman, and Martian Manhunter appear and have the following conversation...

Clark: Odd? As odd as the dreams where I'm a newsreader. Or the one where I've got an ant's head. Or where I'm a gorilla.
Once I dreamed I had this wierd virus and I had to keep going forward in time until the end of the universe...
The one I hate is where I'm just an actor on a strange television version of my life.
Have you ever had that dream?

Batman: Doesn't everyone?

posted July 30, 2001 08:31 PM    

Around about Oct. 17, 1974, I got Amazing World of DC Comics no. 2 (Sept. '74) in the mail.

Among its many beautiful features was a never before published Fat & Slat one page comic, a never before published HG Peter Wonder Woman story from the 40s, a never before published cover illustration (in the centrefold of this book) for House of Secrets by Berni Wrightson, an article on the Superboy TV show that never was (from the early 60s), an article by Paul Levitz on how comics are made (this piece, in a series, was on writing), an article on the comics-mobile, a piece about Kurt Schaffenberger,

an in memoriam for Leo Dorfman--died July 9, 1974--writer of detective novels, various works of fiction and non-fiction, and many many comics, including movie adaptations for Fawcett, Supergirl in Action, as well as Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Superboy, and of course Superman. Writer, too, of Believe it or Not for Gold Key, and later Ghosts (based on true ghost stories) for DC. "But what his friends will remember best will be his infectious smile and the sparkle in his eyes; the little acts of kindness he was apt to do at any time; and the good feeling he seemed to carry with him. His passing has left a void in all our lives."

a word puzzle by Bob Rozakis, and a splendid cover by Kurt Schaffenberger showing Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin at their typewriters, surrounded by The Flash, Green Lantern, Kurt Schaffenberger, Mon-El, Superman, Lois Lane, Tawky Tawny, Capt. Marvel Jr., Invisible Kid, Capt. Marvel, and Green Arrow

posted July 30, 2001 08:51 PM    

"Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin: The Men Behind the Super-Typewriter"

At one point, Guy is asking Bates about his earlier days at DC...
What was Weisinger's trademark?

Bates: He always had an angle, always wanted the original angle in a story. For instance, I had this story where the earth had become polluted, and I was going to do the floating city bit, with skyscrapers floating above the pollution. But Mort said no, have the buildings being added on to so that the people lived in the upper stories miles above the earth, and the lower third was deserted. Not a big thing, but a nice, original touch. Of all the editors, Mort plotted more stories than anyone. In other words, if a writer came in with a story idea and Mort didn't like it, the writer would ALWAYS leave with a plot and an assignment. It was often Mort's plot, but it was work.

How would you describe the "Weisinger plot?"

Bates: He chose to concentrate on the vast Superman mythology he created. When he ran the Superman books, he built up this family, but seldom got into Clark's personality or Lois'...there were standard bits, Lois was curious, Clark was always meek and mild, Jimmy was always an idiot, and this is how the readers indentified them for many years. But single-handedly Mort kept Supe going strong in no less than seven books for several decades. His track record was amazing.

How many stories do you think you wrote for Mort?

Bates: I worked for him the last three years he was at National so I guess altogether maybe fifty, sixty stories.

Any stand out in your mind?[b]

Bates: Yeah...the three-parter in Action where Superman aged, one of the last stories I did for him...

Maggin: That was [b]my favourite.

Bates: Why thank you, Elliot. I liked that story, too.

posted July 30, 2001 09:53 PM    

Let's see if I can give a summary of these stories--so I put the dates, don't have to do that again, right--it's Feb-April, 1970, in Action:

385: "The Immortal Superman!" by Bates and Swan and inker unknown, 15 pages--with a cover by Swan and Anderson showing a grey-haired and wrinkled (but still kinda handsome) Superman breaking green k chains and saying "I'm 100,000 years old...and mightier than ever! Even Kryptonite chains can't hold me anymore! Everyone I've ever known or loved is long dead! When will I die?" He seems to be standing in a medical theatre with doctors seated above him, and one answers, "Never! Our tests show you can't die, Superman!"

Splash page shows Superman floating above the ruins of the Fortress of Solitude which is now a tourist attraction. The caption reads "Superman is the most powerful being on Earth...But does that mean he will live longer than normal humans? Will he die after a hundred years? A thousand? No! The mighty Man of Steel will still be going strong a hundred thousand years from now! But will an eternal life, with no fear of death, be a blessing or a curse to 'The Immortal Superman!'"

As the story unfolds, Superman is in the oval office with the president. We don't see the Prez except in shadow, but judging by the profile--yup that's tricky Dick Nixon.

He's saying that the army's got this top secret vortex experiment going which "depends on the space-time continuum remaining undisturbed!" for 24 hours.

Supes says, "That's no problem, Mr. President! I didn't intend to crash the time-barrier this week, anyway!"

But just then a floating giant mechanical hand materializes in front of the Fortress of Solitude. Superman's security alarms alert him that something's wrong and he goes flying out of the White House and off to the Fortress and...

hey that panel looks like the title page for the Bates/Maggin interview in AWODCC (with a few adjustments). Hey! it is! Oh clever work you woodchucks on AWODCC...

The mechanical hand etches this message on the Fortress key lock door: "Superman your help urgently needed in year 101,970 coordinates x78-543/20"

Problem. Superman can't go through the time-barrier on his own power, but apparently it's okay to use a time machine. There's a defective Legion time-bubble in his fortress that the LSH left there to be scrapped. So off he goes into the distant future--100, 000 years!

But when he disembarks, his future hosts are aghast--"World's of Antares! That can't be Superman!" But the cerebral-micorder confirms that it must be!

Looking in a mirror, Superman realizes that the time-bubble "caused me to age every year along the way! I'm over 100,000 years old!"

His hosts doubt that Superman can still be as strong as legend tells, but when they bring out the strength-defier Superman is able to pry apart the "ultra rigid bars held in place by cosma-magnetism, the mightiest force in the universe!" [Shades of Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone, among other legends--like Odysseus stringing his bow upon his return to Ithaca.]

The future people then enlist Superman's aid in solving the mystery of how vast sums are being stolen from their monetary reserve chamber--their own champions are now in a "deathly para-coma" from trying to defeat whatever has been stealing the monetary funds. And so, in the vast vault, Superman faces down a deadly energy being, and manages to short-circuit it.

Case solved, Superman tries to go back in the time-bubble but crashes against a barrier in time. Same thing when he tries to do it on his own power.

An ethereal Time-Trapper looms in the cosmos, thinking "Heh-heh...You'll never see 1970 again, Superman... because my temporal force barrier will keep the past off-limits until the day you die--no matter how many thousands of years it takes!"

Meanwhile Superman decides to take a tour of the Earth and finds that all the buildings have been added onto, building them up above all the atomic fallout that has accumulated over the centures. Below these jutting spires is a deady radioactive mist.

He wanders into a museum of ancient history, but is nearly mistaken for a member of a gang of outlaws who wear the Superman costume as a sign of disrespect. Then he confronts a trio of metallic looking heroes--the "Multiple-Men!"

One of the trio says that they each have "25 super-powers." The Multiple-Men honour Superman as a legend "the greatest superhero of all time!" "So each of us is honouring you with a gift!"

They gas him, then disappear. Superman chokes, and becomes groggy. He flees in a daze and tries to fly but suddenly falls, but, however, is captured in mid fall by a medical recovery vehicle.

"An hour later, after finally coming out of his deep, sleep, still groggy and confused..." Superman is first lassoed by one doctor wielding a chain of Kryptonite, which Superman easily breaks. Then another doctor shouts, "Release the witch dog from the mystical planet Tozz!" But Superman is impervious to her magical spells. Finally, he is confronted by a floating plate of Virus-X.

Superman shouts "No--not that! The disease is always fatal!" But Superman is "more super than it is... You would even have your powers under a red sun!"

Alas, the Multiple-Men were using "vaccine gases" that have immunized Superman against his only weaknesses.

And as this chapter concludes, Superman thinks,

"This means I can never die...no force in the universe can harm me! My friends...Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Lana, Batman...all dead ages ago! But I can't die! I'll live forever...and I can never...go...home!"

And there ends the first part. And I'll have to leave my story for now, to resume another time.

posted July 30, 2001 11:47 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
Clark: Odd? As odd as the dreams where I'm a newsreader. Or the one where I've got an ant's head. Or where I'm a gorilla.
Once I dreamed I had this wierd virus and I had to keep going forward in time until the end of the universe...
The one I hate is where I'm just an actor on a strange television version of my life.
Have you ever had that dream?

Batman: Doesn't everyone?

Manhunter: I don't.

---

posted August 02, 2001 01:48 PM    

386--"The Home for Old Super-Heroes!" 13 1/2 pages, by Bates, Swan, & unknown.

The cover--another Swanderson achievement--shows a bunch of aging long-john wearers (including Superman) sitting on bauhaus style chairs, in a room with a sign reading "The OLD HEROES' HOME." One of Superman's four compatriots, with antennae sticking out of his bald head, is dressed in Hal Jordan style Green Lantern duds, except his chest emblem is an I super-imposed over an O--

Electroman: I was called Electroman! I can still give off a bolt!
Atom King: I was Atom King, mightiest man on my world!
Green Lantern: I was the last Green Lantern! I was sent here when I grew too old to fight crime!
Superman: And I was Superman on the planet Earth! But like the rest of you, I've outlived my usefulness! No one wants me around any more!

--Since this is the middle of the story, nothing of great moment happens (just as with today's four part arcs, where everything important happens in Superman and then concludes in Action, with AoS and MoS stetching out the plot and marking time). But here, this affords Bates a chance for some comic relief.

Splash--" More than 100,000 years in the future, crime has vanished...wars are no more...even accidents have become rare. So where does a super-hero fit in? Who needs Superman in a peaceful universe? No one, apparently...So he's sent to join other forgotten champions of the glorious past, in 'The Home for Old Super-Heroes!" And Superman is shown whittling logs with his heat vision, fashioning them into busts of his old friends, while other retirees play giant-sized chess or just sleep.

The opening panel shows Earth of 121, 970 "a desolate world, poisoned by the radiation of a nuclear war..." Superman, impervious to the radiation despairs over his lot, while the Time-Trapper looks on and conveniently recaps what happened in last issue's story. Meanwhile Superman flies further on into the future, to the towered city of Metropolis where the people "dwell in the upper levels of their five-mile high skyscrapers, which loom above the poisonous, low-lying atmosphere."

But police in spherical vehicles enclose upon Superman, suspending him in a ring of energy: "You have openly violated prime directive A-7! The use of any super-power in Metropolis is strictly forbidden!" And Superman complies, not wishing to break the law.

Taken into custody at the Control-Complex, his hosts relate how three alien super-champions (two males and one female) settled on Earth thirty thousand years ago and bestowed great gifts upon all of mankind. But a fight broke out between the two male super-guardians over the female, in a war of savage jealousy which lasted two days, before they declared a truce and abandoned Earth. But their "proto-energy" created a poisonous layer of radiation over the entirety of Earth. And thus prime directive A-7 was passed prohibiting all super-human activities.

So Superman wanders off and visits a futuristic "Daily Planet" building where all the news is broadcast all the time on the reporter's menton-scope--a device which allows mental images to be sent and received. Then Superman checks out the ancient newspaper files to see what happened to his friends in the 20th Century: Lois married a movie actor who played Superman (Bob Noran), Jimmy wrote a tell-all book about Superman, while Perry became curator of the Superman Museum after retiring from the Daily Planet.

Following this, Superman sees a flying vehicle about to crash through a building and tries to stop it--there was no need since all vehicles can de-solidify and travel through solid surfaces unharmed. But having violated the prime directive again, Superman is sent off in exile to the old super-folk's home. Where most of the time is spent talking about (and viewing time-records of) the good old days.

But one day the Mayor of Metropolis comes to the home and tries to enlist the aid of these champions in containing a serious threat to the Earth. The oldsters will have none of this, after the way they were treated, but Superman gives a rousing speech that gets them fired up and with his new "Super-Squad" flies off to save the Earth.

The crisis is a chain reaction within a storage silo for Nutanium--"the most powerful explosive element in the universe!" Superman dispatches his super-squad across the galaxy to obtain rare elements which when forged together become a super-strong alloy. The alloy is laid over the top of the silo, while Superman flies around it at great speed forcing the radiation down to the lower levels of the Earth's surface.

Once his job is done, the immortal Superman flies off again further still into the future, with the Time-Trapper always watching him.

posted August 03, 2001 01:45 PM    

But first I should tell you that in the previous issue (386, above), when Superman went to the Daily Planet he also discovered that "1970 was the year reporter Clark Kent mysteriously vanished! Several months later enough conclusive evidence was gathered to prove Kent was secretly Superman!"

now for the conclusion...

s

p

o

i

l

e

r

s

*
*
*
*
*
3
8
7
*
*
*
*
*
387 "Even a Superman Dies!" 16 pages

--cover--Again by Swanderson, this one shows a robotic medical surgeon operating with lasers on a still Superman, supine upon an operating table--Superman's body looks frail and his supersuit is wrinkly. Two elder doctors look on.

Robot: It's no use...I cannot revive Superman! He is over ONE MILLION YEARS OLD!..In minutes he'll turn to dust!

Doctor: If the healer failed, no one can save him!

--Splash--shows Superman splitting the Earth in two, and thinking "I lived on after my home world, Krypton, exploded...and now I'm still alive when Earth is a lifeless sphere! I've outlived two planets! So I'll perform my last super-deed...and my greatest...I'll start by splitting Earth in two!" With the caption:

More than a million years old, the Man of Steel has lost all those he loved...for they belong to a past so remote it is scarcely remembered! Is he doomed to live on in a strange universe...or will we finally see the day when ..."Even a Superman Dies!"

The conclusion begins with an eerie scene of five transparent spheres tethered together in space--inside each sphere is a frozen spaceman. To defrost the castaway astronauts Superman pulls the spheres through the solar radiance of a rainbow sun. Once thawed on a nearby planetoid, one of the revived astronauts is amazed to see that the "Legendary Superman" has rescued them. Another is surprised at how old the Man of Steel looks--"he was supposed to have been a young man when he vanished back in the 20th century." A third asks what year it is. And Superman answers "801, 970!"

The spacemen are aghast as their ship broke down 5,000 years ago! And then they realize that Superman is 8,000 centuries old. They pester him with questions and he responds, "Questions...Questions!!" Then, thinking that the answers are too painful, Superman flies away, he uses his vision powers to force down another spacecraft onto the planetoid so that it will rescue the five castaways, as he surges forward again through the time barrier. And as he does so his past experiences are recapped, while the Time Trapper looks on.

The future beckons to Superman "to explore it!"

He then emerges in the year 1,001,970, to find the Earth--"after a million years of pollution, war, and untold abuse from Man...used up...just a contaminated globe of waste material..."

Meanwhile two gigantic robotic machines converge upon the lifeless sphere: "Dead Planet 446 is directly ahead!" "Observation confirmed! Now we must carry out our orders and remove the ugly thing!"

The monster sized sanitation engineers proceed to carry the Earth away, while the Lilliputian Superman tries ineffectively to halt them. Brute Strength proving useless, Superman enters one of the gargantuan robots through its eye hole, and inside the mammoth machinery the Metropolis Methuselah cannibalizes parts to create a battery which channels "positive energy" into his own body and out through his super-vision into the robotic machinery. He then repeats the same process on the other mechanical mammoth, charging both with an overflow of positive energy. The positive energy--being that "like charges repel"--repells the two sanitation vehicles millions of miles in opposite directions.

Now Superman embarks upon his own engineering feat. He repeatedly drills into the Earth at superspeed until the globe cracks open into two halves. The molten core has long since cooled, but there at the centre exist vital life-giving elements. Superman fuses these two halves, side by side, together with his super-vision. Then he searches the galaxy for another planet that has just the right atmospere--and inhaling large amounts of the gases he transports this air to his newly made Earth, over and over again until the remade planet has a sufficient atmosphere.

(Meanwhile in space a mysterious spaceship has located the Man of Tomorrow.)

Superman seeds the clouds to produce rain, which makes lakes and oceans. He flies to remote worlds to find exotic plant forms, and a balance of animal life, all suited to the new Earth environment. Then on another planet he locates stone-age humanoids--and one special couple, male and female, living in a cave. He seals the entrance of the cave and then transports it through space and puts it down on the new world.

Hovering in the air far above the first couple, the Last Son of Krypton muses, "Now like Adam and Eve, that primitive couple will start another human race! I've given the Earth a second chance to flourish and prosper! The planet has been reborn!"

posted August 03, 2001 11:41 PM    

Superman flies off in that classic Swan pose--one fist up, one down, one knee up, the other leg trailing--and thinks, "What a strange feeling...there's nothing left for me to do now! I've just performed the ultimate feat of my super-career! All I can look forward to now is an eternity of boredom!"

Meanwhile the mysterious space ship (sorta looks like a purple trowel) spots Superman, and thought balloons inform us "We've searched a million years and countless worlds for this moment! Now is the time for the kill!" and with that a beam is sent through the Metropolis Methuselah and the space craft turns away leaving Superman limp in space.

The caption asks "What is this strange pint-size spacecraft?" and then goes on to tell us, jumping back ten thousand centuries to the year 2000 when Lex Luthor visited a Superman shrine--he's not convinced the Man of Tomorrow died back in 1970--and he clearly didn't have a good dental plan, he's all gums, propped up by a cane, showing bad fashion sense.

Luthor muses that Superman could be anywhere--on another world, in another time--but he'll find the Man of Steel once he himself has died. And the instant Lex dies, his "evil psyche-energy" is sent into the killer drone (the purple space-craft). Then the drone sets out on its odyssey in search of Superman, but along the way, over the centuries, it absorbs other "evil psyche energy" from dying villains on other planets--increasing its malevolent power. Until the level of evil energy has become lethal even to an immortal Superman.

We return to the barely living Man of Steel in space. At that moment the master healer, a robotic medic traversing the spaceways, comes upon the mortally wounded humanoid and transports him to the nearest space station--and we see virtually the same scene as on the cover (dialogue and all). But just as hope fades--

Robot: At last...You nearly died...but I saved your life!
Superman: What! Why did you do a fool thing like that? I'm over a million years old...I've outlived everything and everybody I cared for! I wanted to die!

Then in a fury Superman flies off from the space station as the master healer shouts a warning against the dreaded Magnor Comet which is headed that way--"it will disintegrate everything in its path...even you!"

"That'll suit me fine!" thinks Superman, but the killer drone is on his tail, aiming to strike and kill. Just then the Magnor Comet does pass by destroying not Superman but the killer drone. The Man of Tomorrow is pulled along in the Comet's wake, reaching greater velocities than he has ever known before, crashing through the Time Barrier, until "the End of Time!" And Superman blacks out.

"For some time there is only darkness and oblivion... then the blackness lifts..." And from a subjective point of view shot we see Lara reaching out her arms above us, and Jor-El behind her. We see Superman's thought balloon but not him as he recognizes his biological parents and wonders if he's died and is now "meeting them in the next world."

But as we see in the next panel, when he tries to speak, other words than what he intended come out, "Me don't want to take nap, mommy! Me want to play with Krypto!" and we see the baby Kal-El in his mother's arms with Jor-El carrying the little pup, Krypto.

[>choke< I still find this whole scene very touching...]

Kal-El in his thoughts realizes that he is somehow reliving his life "and I can't even speak a word I didn't speak the first time!"

And so Kal-El hops from moment to moment of his existence, aware of his own experiences yet unable to act in them--as Superboy in Smallville, as Clark Kent asking Perry White for a job at the Daily Planet--until he finds himself in the Fortress of Solitude on January 12, 1970, the very day he went off into the future never to return. But the bubble has already left (Superman has already left in the time bubble, and yet he is here now in the Fortress)--"But how?"

And Superman theorizes..."Many scientists believe that time curves back on itself... that somewhere the past and future meet. Well I've just proved it! I traveled so far into the future, I reached my own past! And I got a second chance, just as I gave Earth a second chance in the future!"

posted August 04, 2001 07:37 PM    

President of the US (who was not Nixon)
A masked wrestler
A criminal
A reporter from a great metropolitan newspaper.

posted August 04, 2001 08:22 PM    

Unlike you I never read the first issue.

posted August 05, 2001 02:39 AM    

I visited at collectibles fair today in Sydney and saw some old Actions including the ones we have been discussing.

Do you remember a two parter in which aliens eliminated evil from the Earth leaving Superman with nothing to do. Swan, Abel and ?

And an imaginary two parter where the roles of Superman and Luthor were reversed. Lex-El was sent to Earth and Clark Kent was a gangster. Bates, Swan & Giodarno.

posted August 05, 2001 08:12 AM    

The second story you mention was one (if not the last) imaginary tale written for Superman and was typical for that type of tale (twists and turns, people dying, Jor-el coming to Earth with his son and being pretty much evil, etc.)

posted August 07, 2001 05:31 PM    

But while we're throwing out queries, let me add another one, if you can stand it, pertaining to the "transition period."

I had always thought, when they were being published, that the Super-Sons were an invention of Earth B, or more rightly the Boltinoff multiverse--

Before I go on I guess I have to explain that last bit. In the various Murray Botinoff edited books (including World's Finest, Brave & Bold, Superboy (& the Legion) among others) there were some fairly hair-brained stories that didn't fit into any known continuity of Earth 1 or 2--and so these were dubbed Earth B by fans. But actually there's a multiplicity of continuity in the Boltinoff realm. In B&B Batman would team with various heroes who didn't resemble themselves or any official continuity, and sometimes these various tales are self-contradictory--it seems like we need more than one Earth just for them. Then there's the possible near-future timeline of the Super-Sons, and the distant future timeline of the Legion. And there's a savage version of Superboy, in which Kal-El actually ended up in the jungle rather than Smallville, and had adventures akin to the Jungle Tales of Tarzan or something out of the Jungle Book. So rightly there wasn't just a Boltinoff Earth B, but an entire multiverse--

Yet, years later I obtained Action nos. 391 & 392--which were published in 1970--and these feature the Super-Sons, but Mort Weisinger is still editor (and the art is by Andru/Esposito--I'd guess the writer was Dorfman, whereas Bob Haney wrote the later Super-Son tales in WF). The next issue, # 193 (October, 1970) is edited by Boltinoff with the Swanderson team providing the interior art for the first time (although they had long been the cover artists).

posted August 09, 2001 02:11 PM       

Since we're in the seventies, can somebody give me some info and commentary on some Lois and Clark relationship stories of the seventies. This was where Clark proposed to Lois, when she was suffering from some sort of alien space virus. He asked her to marry me, and she said "yes" if he could tell her that Clark Kent was Superman.

Can somebody tell me what issues those were and how exactly (in what issues) the relationhip had built up to that point.

What issues of Superman dealt with the aftermath of that proposal? Was it Superman 317?

I swear as corny as it was, I prefer it to the post-Crisis "real" proposal.

You know, somebody should take Superman issues 296-297 and those proposal issues, and make a second Lois and Clark trade paperback.

What do you guys think?

posted August 09, 2001 09:25 PM       

I grew up with Superman from about '68 to '74, and this brought back a flood or memories.

I've got some catching up to do, so without further ado:

India Ink -

your list of Swanderson stories was superb! I would make just 2 additions-

"Attack of the Micro-Murderer" by Bates (Action 403) - Superman fights for his life against an alien virus.

"The Island that Invaded the Earth" by Wein (Superman 251) - Superman must figure out why a newly formed island in the South Pacific is causing the Earth's weather to go haywire.

Also - your dead on about the inker on the Action 3-parter, it was George Roussos.

As far as the Super-Sons go, I think the earliest story involving the World's Finest offspring would be "The Sons of Batman and Superman" found in World's Finest 154 (Dec.'65). Technically, I don't think this earlier version fit in with the later stories as their wives are clearly identified here as Kathy Kane and Lois Lane.

Old Guy and Conkom -

It's funny but all of the issues you talked about are from right around the same neighborhood in Action Comics.

- the Virus X serial had to be the longest of the Weisinger era, lasting 5 whole issues from Action 362 to 366 (April to August '68), and it was indeed authored by Leo Dorfman.

- That was followed shortly by the 2-part "Unemployed Superman"/"Superman's Greatest Blunder" you reference. This was in Action 368 and 369 (Oct and Nov '68), and was written by Otto Binder, with art by Swan and Abel.

- The Superman with amnesia bit came soon after, in Action 371, 372, 374, and 375 (373 being a reprint collection, I think), from January to April '69. It was scripted by Otto Binder, with art by Swan and Abel. Superman takes on the personalities of the president, a masked wrestler, and a thief before finally regaining his memory.

- Then, we jump a little bit to issues 383 and 384 (Dec.'69 and Jan.'70) to find the 2-part "The Killer Costume"/"The Forbidden Costume" with Superman fighting off the 2 costumes!

JamesS-

I know exactly the story you're referencing! In Superman 314, Clark proposes to Lois, but she puts him on the spot and asks him to reveal his identity, which of course he refuses to do! Marty Pasko developed this Lois/Clark romance, no doubt inspired by the earlier Bates/Maggin dalliance, starting with his stint on issue 305 up to the climactic 4-parter which ends in 314.

Whew!

Now after catching my breath, I'd like to add my 2 cents to this Superman in the 70s discussion.

I love the "Big Change" Superman stories circa 1970-71 when new creative teams (with the lone hold-over being Curt Swan) breathed new life into the character.

I know many of you mention the "Sandman Saga" as a milestone (and rightly so), but let's not forget the impact that the legendary Jack Kirby made right around the same time over in Jimmy Olsen (133-148).

The sinister Morgan Edge clone, Intergang, the Project, the Evil Factory, the Newsboy Legion, the Whiz Wagon - even now I'm blown away by these stories!

I also have a soft spot for the Schwartz-edited run on World's Finest around the same time (198-214). This was a precursor to the later DC Comics Presents, with Superman teaming up with different characters.

The epic "Race Across the Universe" with the Flash, a Superman/Green Lantern clash (orchestrated by Felix Faust), and one of my favorite Superman/Batman stories "A Matter of Light and Death", where they team up against Dr. Light, are some of the highlights of this run. Once again, I see this as another turning point for the character as Schwartz begins to involve him with the rest of the DC universe, a big departure from the Weisinger era.

Anyway, let the discussion continue - I love this thread!