Once I noticed I was on fire, I decided to relax and enjoy the fall

The Superman Story

Expect this to be a review in parts as I simply kept finding more and more images I wanted to scan and more and more of the frenetic, high Silver Age plot I wanted to either gently chide, openly admire or even more openly mock. I'm still figuring out the new scanner, as well as TypePad's picture insertion features, but I really have wanted to review this paperback my wife found for me in a second hand store for quite some time now.

Entitled "The Superman Story" it's a black and white paperback reprinting of Superman's origin and, at the same time, it's a hilariously convoluted... well, why should I spoil it for you? We won't even get half way through all of the crazy in this one little paperback today.

 

I love the idea that he knows he can melt steel with his eyes, but it never occurs to him that if he does that with glasses on he'll melt the lenses. I know I would do that.

If you want Iron Man to be heroic again, here's what you have to do.

It's fairly simple, actually, and although this whole Skrull business is silly, it does open the door to allow it.

Suppose Tony Stark really does and has suspected some kind of weird conspiracy inside S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA and even various world governments. How would he fight it? He'd need to throw suspicion off of himself, possibly by integrating himself into the machinery of the very conspiracy he feared, of course. Directorate of S.H.I.E.L.D. which he had a hand in creating after all isn't a bad idea. But how does he hope to dig up any dirt on it from such a well watched, public position?

Well, clearly he couldn't.

But a dead man could.

What if this whole thing, from the Civil War on, has in part been a smoke screen? What if it's a plan? What if it's Cap's plan?

We often forget what a brilliant tactician Steve Rogers is. His behavior in the final confrontation with Iron Man and his forces was, quite honestly, tremendously sub-par. Oh, sure, he won the fight, and then he gave up. Captain America, depicted so often as someone who never gives up, gave up. And then he was assassinated in the most ridiculously contrived scene ever, as every advantage that would have prevented his death was haphazardly neutralized.

Perhaps not so haphazardly. Perhaps Cap wanted to make sure he would be believed as dead as dead can be. After all, while the red, white and blue costume would be conspicuous, what's just another blandly handsome blond dude wandering around America? No one would notice him.

We forget how many superspies Cap has worked alongside. The Black Widow, Nick Fury, Sharon Carter and most of S.H.I.E.L.D. - there's a reason Cap took the front line against HYDRA and Madame Viper as many times as he did, a reason that goes beyond tossing a disc at people. Cap's much smarter, and far more tenacious, and far more gifted tactically than most are willing to give him credit for. They...we... see the big broad grin and the brighly colored costume and we forget that this man's been on the front lines for years, has worked behind the scenes as well as in full view of everyone, that he managed to outfight and outwit everyone from Baron Strucker to the Masters of Evil, from AIM to Doctor Doom. He doesn't give up, he doesn't repeat a mistake, he can think on his feet better than anyone, and he's smart enough to smell a set up a mile away.

If you want to redeem Tony Stark, make him Steve Rogers' inside man for the biggest con ever pulled, the conspiracy to deceive skrulls.

Gratuitous Gil Kane post Number One

Since I'm using the scanner to make up for any real content on this page, I might as well do a post about Gil Kane. This scan is from Kane and Roy Thomas' adaptation of The Ring of the Nibelung, as is a scan I'll be linking to instead of posting because, well, it's a drawing of a very naked woman.

I don't have much to add to the pictures... Kane's always been one of my favorite artists, but I'm no master of illustration. I would have loved to see Kane get to work on Conan more than the two issues and covers he did. I'm hoping to find good scans from his run on Thor soon, or the Superman storylines he illustrated. For now, I'll leave you with these.

Since I have a working scanner now...

Wouldn't it be funny to see what it would look like if Jim Shooter and Curt Swan were the creative team on Batman? Sure it would! And while I can't actually show you that, I can show you what Batman's origin would look like in their hands, thanks to an imaginary story from December of 1967.

Okay, so maybe not so much funny as horrifying. The look on young Bruce's face really sells it.

The story in question ("Superman and Batman - Brothers!") is kind of demented, but at the same time, a fairly entertaining read. For some reason, instead of letting a dometic servant take care of the kid with no real supervision for a decade, the Gotham City Social Services department decides to put the kid in a foster home in Kansas, and he ends up adopted by the Kents. Soon (according to the story, days later in fact) young Bruce starts beating the hell out of bullies and taking crime scene photographs of defeated tank-riding burglars who made the mistake of taking their tanks to rob Smallville, where the most powerful living thing in existence happens to reside, instead of taking those selfsame tanks to, say, anywhere else. Soon, young Clark is concerned that Bruce intends to emulate the very villains he himself foils so assiduously as Superboy, and one misunderstanding later, Batboy is born and helps fight crime in Smallville alongside Superboy.

No, I don't know why a small town in Kansas had so much crime that there was enough work for Superboy and Batboy.

Upon growing up, the dynamic duo of Batman and Superman decide to go fight crime from out of Bruce's enormous mansion in Gotham City. They foil an attack by Luthor, which leads to the following page, which I will let speak for itself.

Yeah. Luthor really should have known better than to try androids against Batman. Especially when his adopted parents are on the line. There's more images to come, because I went scan happy, so sit back and enjoy.

We all know Batman is about to seriously kick Luthor's ass, of course. I mean, for one thing, the dude just killed his adoptive parents right in front of him. Also, the costume's really badly ripped up, and we all know that when Batman starts showing some skin you're in deep trouble, Finally, take a look at those hands. No one holds their hands up above their head like that unless they're going to bring them down on someone else's skull. Am I right?

Oh yeah, I am right. (I should learn how to thumbnail these.) Anyway, Batman almost kills Luthor but manages to snap out of it at the last moment and soon tells Superman that he's giving up crimefighting for good. Superman's remarkably calm about the whole 'hey, your parents just got snuffed' thing compared to Batman, and decides he knows the best therapy for an unhinged vigilante who has had to endure the deaths of two sets of parents.

Yes, he takes him to the future and basically forces him to join the Legion of Super Heroes.

Superman doesn't have time for crap like grief or therapy, he just tosses your ass in the deep end of the 30th century. I wonder how many members of the LSH joined because Superman kidnapped them from their own time periods. Is Element Lad really just Jacob Priestly, forced to join rather than give up his love of chemistry?

Anyway, yeah, that's what Jim Shooter and Curt Swan did with Batman. Some of the scenes are actually quite touching, but I didn't let that stop me from making fun of them.

Look, if you don't want people to spread rumors, don't weep when you see him kissing a woman, okay?

From the annals of Batman and Robin, I present you with this.

Yeah, okay. You know, I often think people just want to BELIEVE that you guys are a couple. But then you go and do this, and well, I don't know what other conclusion I could be drawing.