In the John Varley edited Superheroes , Varley writes a story about Kal-el landing in Russia titled “Truth, Justice, and the Politically Correct Socialist Path.”
[Yakov Smirnoff]
In Bizarro World, Kal-El finds the Kents !!
[/Yakov Smirnoff]
Platform shoes.
He uses his x-ray vision to reveal that Jimmy is a Jew.
Think about it …
I landed here to mention Supreme Power. The child is found by a farming couple on page three; he’s confiscated by the military on page five. In real life, thats fairly accurate; its naive to think a spaceship could crash on earth and the government wouldnt be on the scene in no time. The way the boy is raised, with “Nothing to push against” is pure calculated evil. The “death” of his parents, his anti-communist fairy tales (“Now just you listen here, Mousey Tongue!”), the tests on how to kill him if the need arose… All in all, it seems fairly accurate as to how such an event, the raising of the worlds first super being, would take place.
Yeah, the bit where he realises that he’s been duped, that all his “missions” were a feelgood PR front while Doctor Spectrum took care of the dirty black-ops stuff, was great: especially the flashbacks to where the military are discussing how to kill this baby if needs be. That’s cold.
I always liked Stanley, though: using your powers to get chicks and endorse soft drinks is pure class.
I am quite a fan of Elseworlds type graphic novels (familiar characters, different circumstances) and I can’t recommend Red Son highly enough. I like that it’s not solely a Superman story, but rather weaves a variety of other DC characters into the world as it would have been had Kal-El been raised on a collective in the Ukraine (IIRC) rather than Smallville.
You’ve also got The Nail, as has been mentioned. I liked it, though not as much as Red Son. No real reason I can put my finger on. I just didn’t think it was as good.
Thanks for all the recommendations–heading out to the comic shop in a few days to get the ones recommended.
I’m very familiar with various Batman “Elseworlds” stuff–“Gotham by Gaslight,” “The Blue, The Gray and The Bat,” etc.
Was wondering–is there any “Superman In The 19th Century” (or before) stuff?
Thanks again.
Sir Rhosis
A few…there’s only one that comes to mind, off the top of my head though, is the one that combines Tarzan and the Jungle Book, with Kal in the Mowgli/Tarzan role.
There was, I think, the first Elsewords tp, “Holy Terror,” in which Batman discovers that his parents were murdered by the State (an Anglican Church theocracy – this is a world where Cromwell’s England continued into the present, and the American Revolution never happened).
Bruce Wayne dons an old “bat-devil” costume of his father’s, and goes hunting for a mysterious figure known as the Green Man, a superpowerful alien who landed on Earth, but was captured by the State.
After infiltrating a top secret lab, he finds the Green Man – a dead Kryptonian, strapped to a cross-shaped operating table, dead only a couple days of Kryptonite exposure; they’d been using the stuff on him for years to keep him feeble. This inspires him to become The Demon (Batman) on a permanent basis.
There’s probably less since Batman (and any villains) is effectively constrained by the time and society, whilst Kal would be far too overpowered for anything beyond a length of time backwards.
Supreme Power riffed on Batman’s origins as well - except that Nighthawk, the costumed and driven millionaire vigilante, was black, and as a child saw his parents gunned down in front of him by a shotgun-toting redneck in a racist hate crime in the South.
The 1960s-era story wang-ka refers to above (“The Day Superman Became The Flash”, for you completists) shows what happens when Superman would have landed on a world with circa Robin-Hood-Era technology, which is as close as I’ve seen. Something inhibited his super-powers (like one of those ubiquitous red suns), so he became a master archer, a la Green Arrow.
One of my favorites is "Superman’s Metropolis, whixch came out about a decade ago as a one-shot. A mix of the Superman mythology with Fritz Lang’s movie Metropolis. Wonderfully weird, as Kal-El is found by the Kents, but they’re not exactly the same Kents. The Luthor/Rotwang character is Lutor, who creates the robot to take the place of Mrta Kent. Weird and interesting stuff.
There was one called Superman: A Nation Divided in which Superman is a soldier during the American Civil War. While I haven’t read it, I’ve heard pretty good things about it.
Here’s a Wikipedia article that you may find interesting. It’s a list of Elseworlds stories.
With a big uSa shield. Yep. Good stuff.
Hm. There’s Kal, a Middle Ages story. Gotham by Gaslight happens to be the first Elseworld, as I recall.
You do realize, don’t you, that Superman is a fictional character, made up by Siegel and Shuster back in 1938, not a real person? I ask because you seem to feel that any question about Christian beliefs requires you to step in and explain your perspective on how it’s all made up for someone’s nefarious motives – and I felt that you needed the same clarification with regard to your own issues.
Thank you.
It’s the first of the ‘German Film Trilogy’ - Superman’s Metropolis, Batman - Nosferatu, and Wonder Woman: Blue Amazon. Metropolis and Nosferatu are both very good, wheras Blue Amazon could be passed on without missing much. Nosferatu doesn’t bear any resemblance to the movie, and Blue Amazon has little resemblance to The Blue Angel, unlike Metropolis.
I have an elseworlds where it was one of Kal-El’s ancestors came to earth before the american revolution. He arrives as an adult and ends up getting called the “Warlock Royal”. He prevents the American Revolution. Fast forward a couple hundred years (he’s still alive) his latest descendant is called Kal-El and bears a striking resemblance to a certain superhero.
The same collection included “Batman of the Caribbean” (Bruce Wayne as a privateer) and one with Jon Henry as a slave on a southern plantation. The last story was one where Harvey Dent became Batman instead of Bruce Wayne
There was a circa 1970 Action Comics story that I don’t recall being mentioned above, wherein Kal lands on some alien planet which is in a primitive state. As he grows up, the civilization grows up with him. His body is somehow influencing their development, and by the time he’s an adult they’ve become pretty far advanced. Unfortunately, some technology-based catastrophe starts to overtake them, and they realize that the only way to save themselves is to get Kal oyut of there. His own son uses a machjine to regress Kal to a baby and sends him off again into space. I tyhjink he goes backwards in time as well, to keeop the continuity.
More specifically, a hologram recording Jor-El had made while searching for a suitable planet for his infant son was discovered by Aquaman and his sidekick octopus Topo. The recording and playback device were attached to the exterior of baby Kal’s rocket, apparently breaking loose when the rocket approached Earth. Aquaman watched the recording, summoned Green Arrow, Batman, the Flash and the Atom and the five of them staged a little intervention of sorts, bringing Superman over to watch the recording.
Three of the planets Jor-El considered had yellow suns, meaning Superman would have his powers, and three had red suns.
Xann: Yellow sun. Humanoid population at least fifty feet tall, making Kal-El a relative shrimp. Kal-El wears an Atom-like costume, becomes a hero.
Valair: Yellow sun. Planet covered with water. Kal-El wears an Aquaman-like costume, becomes a hero.
Ntann: Red sun. Medeival tech. Kal-El, with his relatively advanced intellect, comes up with improvements of the arrows used by the inhabitants. Is eventually dismayed by their warlike nature, lives in self-imposed exile.
Saruun: Red sun. Planet lives in perpetual darkness, caused (oddly) by an artificial satellite putting the planet in permanent eclipse. Why they’ve done this is unclear. Kal-El is adopted and trained by a retired law-enforcement officer to become a masked vigilante, modeled on a bat-like flying creature, the “Diro”.
Gangor: Red sun. Near-identical to Earth. Kal-El found and adopted by a couple whose husband is very keen on science and tech. He eventually develops an “energizing force” ray that gives Kal superspeed powers. Kal accidentally runs right off the planet and dies, having a superhero career lasting less than one day.
Earth: Yellow sun. Acceptable.
Pre-Crisis, “Bruce (Superman) Wayne” was a recurring imaginary backup feature. Kal’s rocket lands in a swamp near Gotham and he crawls to safety, to be picked up by a young James Gordon who, assuming the child is a foundling, turns him over to Thomas and Martha Wayne. Bruce’s powers develop and he eventually becomes Superman, but eventually retires to concentrate on scientific research. He marries Gordon’s daughter Barbara, who becomes vigilante Batgirl after James’ murder.
You may be thinking of Superman 2001 from Superman #300 (June 1976). Kal’s rocket lands in the mid Pacific on February 29, 1976, sending the US and USSR in a scramble to recover it, with Lieutenant Thomas Clark being the first to reach it. Kal is studied and raised in an ultra-secure US facility, overseen by General Kent Garrett, who dubs him “Skyboy”. The story is quaintly dated cold-war fiction, depicting an optimistic 2001 far more advanced (with hover-recliners and hologram television and whatnot) than the crappy version we got.