Comic Report: Superman’s War Of The Worlds Crossover

Today’s project is dusting and some mild reorganizing. Seeing as I haven’t had the most interesting article lately I wanted to make up for it with something worth reading. So here’s a review from my primary project, BW Media Spotlight, about one of my favorite Superman crossovers, a different take on the H.G. Wells classic. Enjoy.

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The year was 1938, which would see the debut of two influences from fake aliens. The first was Action Comics #1, which debuted among other characters the hero known as Superman. Unlike the Superman we know today his powers didn’t come from the Sun but because Earth’s gravity is lighter than Krypton’s. He couldn’t fly or had any special vision powers but he was superstrong, could leap an 8th of a mile and outrun a train, and while he was still bulletproof he wasn’t as invulnerable as he is today. The force of a bursting shell was the minimum to pierce his skin, and that was by 1938 levels. That wasn’t the only difference between the Superman of history and the later known iconic take on Superman.

1938 was also the debut of the Mercury Theater’s Halloween radio broadcast The War Of The Worlds. Loosely inspired by the H.G. Wells novel the setting was moved to then present day, with the framing device of a music broadcast constantly interrupted by a mysterious threat from the planet Mars. While the public reaction has been greatly exaggerated (one source suggesting it was the newspapers taking a shot at radio because radio news came faster than the twice-daily newspaper–and given modern reactions to new media I’m willing to believe it), the story still earned a place in our culture, and TV specials have used the same framing device.

1999 may be a year late for the two stories to have an anniversary, but it’s the reason 1938 was chosen as the setting for one of my favorite Superman Elseworlds stories. Superman: War Of The Worlds uses the original incarnation of Superman while mixing elements of the original Wells novel and the Orson Wells radio drama and tells a story of what could have happened had this relatively weaker Man Of Steel had to protect the world from the other Red Menace.

“Geez, J’onn, I said I’d pay you back on Friday!”

Superman: War Of The Worlds

DC Comics (1999)

WRITER: Roy Thomas

ARTIST: Michael Lark

COLORIST: Noelle Giddings

SEPARATIONS: Heroic Age

LETTERER: Willie Schubert

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Comic Report: Superman #330

We cleaned a good part of the house this week amidst a few distractions so all I have for you this week is another crosspost from BW Media Spotlight‘s “Scanning My Collection” series. I had just gotten this comic as reviewed it as I went along. It speaks to a pet peeve I have when discussing Clark Kent as a secret identity for Superman. Enjoy.

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This is going to be an interesting edition of…

…for a few different reasons. One, this isn’t something that has spent years in my longboxes. I picked this up last week for the heck of it. Two, I haven’t read this yet, so you’ll be seeing a “live” blogging as I go through it, kind of like I do with “Chapter By Chapter”. Three and finally, the subject is one that makes me shake my head–the continued belief that the Clark Kent identity is just a pair of glasses.

There is more to Clark than spectacles. He acts differently as Clark than he does as Superman, dresses differently (obviously), and speak differently. Look up the voice work of Bud Collyer or watch Christopher Reeve’s acting in the movies. Anyone who plays Superman, either by voice or in the flesh needs to remember that they are playing two separate identities, something most Bruce Wayne/Batman portrayers get but too many Clark Kent/Superman portrayers mess up. See my Clutter Reports review of All-Star Superman the movie. I picked up the old serials finally and the actor there does a good job as Clark but Superman thus far hasn’t gotten a lot of lines. This was something I should have pointed out in the review of DC Comics Presents #50, where the two identities became separate people for a time. It works because (1) nobody suspects Superman HAS another identity, (2) Clark is so weak and mild-mannered (although a little less so post-Crisis) that nobody would suspect him and (3) if they can’t guess Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow with the same distinct goatee and little to no change in personality they’d never figure this one out. (Lest you think the Marvel Universe has the only stupid people. They just have more stupid citizens per capita.)

So let’s read this one and see what the “big secret” is to how Kal-El pull this off, according to 1978.

“George Reeves?”

Superman #330
DC Comics (December, 1978)

“The Master Mesmerizer of Metropolis”

(try saying that title three times fast)

WRITER: Martin Pasko

(based on a script concept by Al Schroder the third)

ARTISTS: Curt Swan & Frank Chiaramonte

LETTERER: Ben Oda

COLORIST: Adrienne Roy

EDITOR: Julius Schwartz

Book & Record Report: Superman book & record

 

So I’m hopefully done with this latest kidney stone issue but I haven’t gotten back to action just yet. So here’s another crosspost from the other site…which I also didn’t get to work on this week.

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Remember when Superman was fun? DC wants you to forget fun altogether unless killing heroes, dismemberment, and boobs all in your face is your idea of fun. They’re all for you then. But I want to look at a Superman story from my youth. Namely, this one.

Superman…smiling? When will you see that again?

This is from the Peter Pan Book & Record series. They made a lot of licensed book & record comics, including other DC characters, horror stories like Frankenstein and Dracula (possibly the Marvel Dracula and it was all kid-friendly stuff), and TV shows like Star Trek. I have one of the Star Trek stories and we’ll get to that someday.

There are two things in this review you don’t usually get in a “Scanning My Collection” article. One is what you’re not getting: credits. I can’t seem to find concrete proof of who worked on this comic or the accompanying audio so I can’t really comment on them. The other is audio actually showing you the story in a rather decent presentation combining the audio (minus the page change noises) and the comic panels. So watch for yourself…”City Under Siege”! Bing.

Comic Report: DC Universe Presents #50

This one comes from my other site so it’s a bit more relaxed than a usual Clutter Report review. I did get my computer desk cleaned off like I wanted to and now the battle with clutter on it begins anew. However, this week was devoted to some new video equipment and thus this transferred review which was actually quite recent.

Superman is my favorite DC superhero, possibly my favorite superhero period. It’s not just the amazing powers he has, but what he does with them. Despite what this cynical age (which sadly includes too many superhero writers) believes would or should happen, he helps people and then tries to lead a normal life. He’s someone who kids can admire and adults should try to be more like, and his adventures can be somewhat mundane or large and fantastic. Where Batman is versatile with how he can be portrayed, Superman is versatile with what kinds of stories he can be part of.

I grew up in a very Superman-friendly period. Adventures Of Superman was in syndicated reruns, as were the Filmation cartoons, we had a series of theatrical releases, and even Superboy had his own syndicated TV series for a while…which went into some weird ideas in the later seasons. As far as comics, I had the Justice League of America comic I’ve reviewed on my other site, a book & record where Superman fought a terrorist group, which is boring to review but a good read/listen, and DC Comics Presents #50, a comic I once lost but happily found a back-issue of so I can still enjoy. And it’s just as good a read now as it was then. This was Superman’s team-up book, and he teamed with many of the DC Universe’s best and newest and even traveled to Eternia to fight alongside He-Man. So who did he join forces with during the “50th Golden Jubilee Issue!”?

Greatest team-up ever?

DC Comics Presents Vol. 5 #50

Featuring Superman and Clark Kent

DC Comics (October, 1982)

WRITERS: Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn

ARTIST: Curt Swan & Kurt Shaffenberger

COLORIST: Gene D’Angelo

LETTERER: A. Kawecki

EDITOR: Julius Schwartz

That’s right, Superman teams with his own alter-ego. And to quote an old cliche, “not a hoax, not an imaginary story”. This team-up is actual DC canon pre-Crisis. So how did this happen?

DVD Report: All-Star Superman

Cover of All Star Superman, Vol. 1

How about a bit more time with the hero of Metropolis? While I wanted to talk about the book that I reviewed last week, I did pick up a NEW piece of Superman non-comic media.

All-Star Superman was a 12-part mini-series written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quietly. The story involves (this isn’t a spoiler, it’s the plot) Superman dying. I read the first issue and didn’t get into it. That’s not a condemnation; it looks like a good comic. It’s just we haven’t had a proper Superman story in years, even in his own comic book so it just didn’t garner my interest.

Last week I was in BJ’s Wholesale Club when I came upon the animated version of the unfortunately abbreviated story. I already knew about it (DC has been putting a number of comic arcs into animated form…not surprisingly many of them written by current creative officer Geoff Johns) but it came out in a time when my money was too low to consider it. Now finding it at $3 when my funds are a bit larger, I figured why not? So was I right to avoid this, or is this a touching portrayal of Superman’s last days?

“I forgot my sun tan lotion.”

All-Star Superman

FORMAT: DVD

STUDIO: Warner Animation/DC Universe

DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Home Video

STARRING: James Denton (Superman), Christina Hendricks (Lois Lane), and Anthony LaPaglia (Lex Luthor)

based on a story by Grant Morrison  and Frank Quietly

WRITER: Dwayne McDuffie

PRODUCERS: Bruce Timm & Alan Burnett

VOICE DIRECTOR: Andrea Romano

DIRECTOR: Sal Liu

EDITOR: Margaret Hou

Book Report: Superman “Which Way” book

Thursday was Superman’s 75th anniversary and since he’s my favorite DC superhero, if not my favorite period, I wanted to do something special. Well, I have a Superman book here that won’t go through the “Chapter By Chapter” process over on my other site, because it doesn’t read like that. I’m sure you’ve heard of Choose Your Own Adventure ® books. They’re awesome. The Wikipedia article I linked to refers to them as “gamebooks” and there are elements of role-playing games in there. If you haven’t heard of them, the idea is that at certain points in the story a choice is offered. The reader then makes a choice and his or her choice will change the story. You don’t read it like a normal book, but bounce to different pages to continue the story. They’re a lot of fun.

They’re also very popular, so much so that other book publishers got in on the game, creating similar “gamebooks”. One of them was Archway Paperbacks, who created the “Which Way” series, an obvious play on their name. Like CYOA, Which Way books had the reader playing themselves as a character. The narrator talks about “you” and character names aren’t given. Even in the two Star Trek books you “play” an ensign and decide who you want to hang out with.

An intended sub-series was the “DC Super Heroes Which Way” books (although the gamebooks website in that link refers to them as “Super Powers” it clearly says Super Heroes on my book). I was lucky to get the first one in the series, featuring the Man of Steel himself, Superman! On the back cover of mine are teasers for a Wonder Woman and a Batman book. According to that gamebook site, Wonder Woman’s never showed up, although apparently Supergirl and the Justice League did have books and Batman’s showed up eventually. The series didn’t do well for Archway. Too bad, because the Superman one was darn good!

“I get by with a little help from my…enemies?”

Superman: The Man of Steel

Super Heroes Which Way #1

PUBLISHER: Archway Paperbacks (1983)

A British printing was released in 1985, and this book was reprinted for his 50th birthday under the “Super Powers” series.

WRITER: Andrew Helfer

ARTIST: José Delbo