My 7-year-old son brought a book home from his school library that is a collection of Superman comics from the late 50’s and 60’s. I was pretty pumped about this because it was in the early 60’s that I used to take my weekly allowance–a dime–to the drug store and buy the latest Superman comic. I was pretty ticked when they raised the price to $.12–paper and ink costs going up, they claimed.
Anyway, I started reading to him out of this book as bedtime stories for a few days. The thing that struck me was how lame these stories are. (Stories from other eras earlier and later may have been much different; I don’t know, I’m not a Superman historian.) I mean really lame plot devices. Like he purposely destroyed a huge underwater movie set as part of an elaborate scheme to fool some criminals who were plotting to assassinate the president (don’t ask), and then his thought cloud says, “I’ll just fix this later.” Then in the same episode he destroys a bridge, and then his thought cloud says, “I’ll just fix this later.”
In a different episode he becomes trapped by Brainiac in a miniaturized Kryptonian city in a bottle. He gets out by using a rocket ship which just happened to be developed by a scientist there (why someone in a bottle needs a rocket I’ve no idea. No, it wasn’t a bottle rocket.). Problem was getting through the metal stopper in the top of the bottle. Well, it just so happens that the city has a zoo with an animal that just happens to eat metal. So he takes this animal up with him and has it eat through the stopper. Why they didn’t have a drill is beyond me.
I’m still trying to figure out how Bizarro Superman could be totally inorganic.
Journalists are invited aboard a spaceship. Clark feigns claustrophobia or something and simply dons a rocket pack, jumps out the door, and ostensibly jets back to Earth (although he really just flew back as Superman as soon as he was out of sight).
I’m all for literary license but even for kids’ stories, this is Lame.
It sort of spoiled my memories of how cool all those stories were. I will never think of them the same way again.
We’ve all been conditioned to read comics as they’ve developed since Marvel changed everything in the 60s. But late 50s superhero comics were designed to be for seven-year-olds. For one thing, this was after the comics code, so publishers went out of their way to make everything as innocuous as possible. And also comics then really were thought of as things for kids. Adults didn’t read comics unless they were morons (see any depiction of an adult comic reader in the media at the time.) Even teens were too old to read comics. Comics were for kids to thrill at without ever thinking.
The past is a different country. We so forget that all the time.
The scientists of Kandor had all kinds of odd things. Some were standard Kryptonian devices. Some were part of ongoing research to restore the city to its normal size. Some were just scientists working in their fields.
Flashbacks established that most zoos had metal eaters. I’d be stunned if that story was the first mention of them. IIRC Metal eaters look like a cross between a rhinoceros and a bulldog. The bars of a metal eaters cage are made from tempered glass. Otherwise, it would eat its way free. Visitors to the zoo bring empty cans, etc to throw to the metal eater.
Gee, is it appropriate for seven-year-olds to read Superman? Especially from the 50’s and 60’s? After all, as I’m sure you’re all well aware, Superman Is A Dick at http://www.superdickery.com/dick/1.html
For many, many examples of comic book lameness, see Superdickery.Com at http://www.superdickery.com/. Started with the principle that Superman is a real dick, and illustrating that principle, he moved on into such subjects as Stupid powers, and so forth.
Mainly, it’s Superman, but some others get a look in.
Is Kandor still in the comics? I quit buying and reading on anything like a regular basis right around the time of the Crisis on Infinite Earths dealie in the 80’s, so I am aware that a lot of the stuff I associate with Superman doesn’t “exist” anymore.
Bottled Kandor, no. But there’s a new version of it, with a slightly different story. (It’s now in a different dimention, and isn’t inhabited soley by Kryptonians.)
Supergirl and Power Girl are going to be there in Supergirl’s book OYL.
What? They’re not lame! They’re goofy! There’s a difference.
I know the book you’re talking about, and it’s awesome on toast. Obviously they can’t do a story where Superman is really threatened, because nothing can threaten Superman, so the stories are soap opera, puzzles, and just plain old fashioned stories of Superman being a dick.
Heck, if I didn’t already have a copy, I’d take it off your hands. (And if it wasn’t a library book.) Instead, I’ll merely wait impatiently until Volume 2 comes out this spring.
Well, I have just have this picture of the writers sitting in a room saying (hypothetical story), “How do we resolve this situation we’ve built up? I mean, Superman has to either let Lois Lane die, or let Jimmy Olsen die. How do we get out of this one? Should we study ancient Greek tragedies, or classic Shakespeare for how they resolve their epics? Nah, fuck it. Let’s just invent purple Kryptonite and then go have lunch.”
My point isn’t really to trash the comic, but just to say that as an adult I am not reliving the excitement I felt as a kid.
As someone who started reading comics shortly after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, I always had a hard time understanding what anyone saw in any of those books. I think whatever comics we grow up reading are the ones we remember as being the ‘best’, so for me it was stuff that a lot of other readers at the time hated. I have fond memories of Secret Wars II , for example. When I started looking at back issues of Batman, I couldn’t believe how unbelievably corny some of the stuff was and I wondered how the book lasted to the modern era being so crappy.
But occassionally now I go back and re-read one of my favorites from that era and I wonder how I could have thought so highly of it at the time. I think for a lot of this stuff it’s the memories I have associated with reading it for the first time, moreso than the actual story, that I remember so fondly.
Actually it’s more interesting than that. Mort Weisinger would call up the cover artist and say “Hey, do a cover where Superman’s fighting Clark Kent” or “where a lion is about to bite Lois’s head off” or “where Superboy is being denied membership is a club of super-teens.” Then he’s show the writer the cover and tell him to figure out a way for Superman to get out of it.
[qoute=batsto]I think for a lot of this stuff it’s the memories I have associated with reading it for the first time
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Mark Waid (and others) says “The Golden Age of anything is 12.”
Yes, I liked Secret Wars II…because I was young enough, and new enough to comics to not know any better. For the same reasons I assume that the OP found those awful Superman stories so much better when he was younger.
I guess I should clarify…I have fond memories of reading Secret Wars II. Looking back at it now, I can see why people thought it stunk. But I remember being 12 years old or so and reading it, thinking it was the coolest thing ever. It doesn’t really hold up now that I’m older though.
