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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LEGO Superman Vs. Power Armor Lex

This is the biggest LEGO set I’ve ever built. I picked up this set because it had the classic Superman, while other LEGO sets were based on the Man Of Steel movie. It’s been sitting off to the side for months, and yesterday I finally decided to build the sucker! At the end of this article you can even watch me build it. Total time was about an hour and a half, but that includes time to get Google Hangouts On Air to work and chase pieces that fell off of my desk.

But before all that we’ll review the final product.

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