Cover price was $2.50, I got it for a quarter.

This is the second in a series of paperback novels Warner Books published, presumably in conjunction with their Superman franchise of movies starring Christopher Reeve. Superman II was released in theaters in 1980; presumably this book was in bookstores to capitalize on that film.

Before we get into the book itself, I want it stated for the record: I have been looking for a copy of Miracle Monday for YEARS. Every time I’m at a thrift store, whenever I’m browsing a used book store’s shelves… I’m looking for a copy of Miracle Monday. It’s been at the top of my “Most Wanted” list for awhile now. I had just about resigned myself to eBay when I happily ran across this copy in the wild a few months ago. Both Miracle Monday and the novel which preceded it (Superman: The Last Son of Krypton) have a reputation among fans of Superman as being a great representation of the character. When Superman fans discuss the BEST Superman stories ever told, Last Son/Miracle Monday regularly make many people’s list. High praise indeed for a character who usually appears in a visual medium; I wanted to check them out for myself.

I should also mention, although both books use Christopher Reeve’s image on their covers, neither Last Son of Krypton or Miracle Monday are novelizations of the films. These are brand new stories written by Maggin which use the Superman mythos in new an interesting ways.

The titular “Miracle Monday” is revealed to be a holiday regularly celebrated in 2857 as a day of great joy amongst humanity, although the origins of the celebration have, at that date far in the future, been forgotton. A time traveler from the future named Kristin Wells has come back to this era to learn the origins of Miracle Monday. This puts her into contact with Superman and his extended supporting cast of friends and enemies. As that drama is unfolding, Superman is being challenged by none other than Satan (here called Samael), who dispatches C.W. Saturn, one of his foremost demons, to demoralize and destroy the Man of Steel.

One of the things I quite enjoyed about Miracle Monday is the way Maggin tackles the conundrum of Superman’s secret identity. It’s a question many have pondered over the years: Is Superman the real guy… or is it Clark Kent acting as Superman? For much of my fan life, DC Comics made the decision that Superman was Clark Kent. If you woke this character up in the middle of the night without warning and said “WHAT’S YOUR NAME?” he’d say “I’m Clark Kent!” not “I’m Superman!”

That’s certainly one way to go with the character. Clark Kent grounds Superman and provides some relatable storytelling options. I enjoyed reading a lot of those comics… but for me, that choice rings false. It’s a bad choice because yes, Clark Kent is the human part of Superman… but Superman is NOT human. That’s an important distinction about the character because it’s a choice. Superman chooses to be human, he chooses to be Clark Kent. He doesn’t have to be Clark Kent, but he wants to be. He lives in the trenches with the rest of humanity… even though he’s much greater than all that.

I’ve always been more comfortable with the idea of Superman being the real guy and Clark Kent being the mask, the disguise. That’s the Superman Maggin’s writing here and it’s a beautiful thing. Early in the book, he confronts this idea directly by having Pa Kent dream about a despotic Superboy gradually coming to use his power to rule the Earth in any way he chooses. Later, there are lovely passages wherein Maggin has Superman detail just how much he loves Clark Kent and how hard he works on making the Kent identity believable. Check this passage out to see what I mean:

The novel continues to approach the concept of secret identity in interesting ways, but revealing those aspects would put us solidly in spoiler territory, so I’ll abstain. Suffice to say, Maggin does good work with the title character and pokes him in new directions vis a vis his dual nature.

Maggin doesn’t skimp on the supporting cast either, crafting both Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen as living, breathing people rather than props. My favorite take on Lois in this book happens when Lois is having a telephone conversation with her new friend Lena Thorul. Lois constantly seems on the verge of getting sidetracked from the story she’s telling Lena, and Lena keeps having to focus her. It’s a great scene showing how much is running through Lois’ mind and instantly colors the character for readers.

Some parts of Miracle Monday just put a smile on my face. The idea of Superman and Ray Bradbury being friends, the idea of Supes and Ray going to Disneyland and hanging out with Walt Disney…. this is a fantastic conceit, even if it’s just a small plot cul-de-sac that doesn’t directly affect the main narrative. In fact, unnecessary but illuminating details like these are Maggin’s speciality throughout the novel. An early reference to C.W. Saturn (the main antagonist of Miracle Monday) having once lost in a battle to Daniel Webster is another fun aside that deepens the story considerably without advancing it significantly.

I wasn’t totally thrilled with the last DC Comics Universe novel I read by Maggin, but that was more an adaptation than an original creation. Clearly Maggin has an expert handle on The Man of Steel; Miracle Monday more than earned its’ reputation in my opinion. It’s a fantastic book.

The return of Superboy-Prime in 2005′s Infinite Crisis miniseries was an example of the neat long-gestating comebacks that can only happen in comics. An extraneous, throwaway duplicate character, created twenty years before in one of the umpteen Crisis on Infinite Earths crossovers, the Clark Kent of Earth-Prime was gone in a heartbeat, slipping into oblivion with his Earth-2 brother Kal-L and Earth-3′s Alexander Luthor. Whether he was stored away for future use or never to be seen again was up to whoever held the editorial reins at DC, and lo and behold, as the company ramped up to the anniversary of the biggest event in the company’s history, the accidental Superboy was dusted off along with his fellow exiles. It was a return long in the making.

Of course, the nice aw shucks kid had become a psychotic killer, so it was quite a comeback.

What Superboy-Prime became now obscures what he was in his first appearance. Which is a shame. His introduction in DC Comics Presents #87 is by far one of the finest bits storytelling to come from the penumbra of Crisis spinoffs. Those sideshows could often devolve into stories cramming as many oddly juxtaposed characters together as the newsprint could hold (LOOK ENEMY ACE IS HANGING OUT WITH BLUE DEVIL!), and they suffered because of it. Not this comic, though. It stands as a shining beacon of good plots not being so much about what is told, but how it’s told.

Superboy-Prime’s introduction couldn’t have been in more capable hands. Elliot S! Maggin, who scripted any number of fine comics at this point, and Curt Swan, who was, well, Curt Swan, an artist that could invest anything with delight, formed one heck of a solid script/art tag team (Al Williamson contributed inks). And this was by no means their first Kryptonian rodeo, as they’d partnered to craft a stack of Superman comics over the years, including the wondrously bizarre Sword of Superman annual that I yakked about last year. With this comic they created a book that stuck in my head for twenty years, long before dragging Superboy-Prime back from the archives was a glimmer in anyone’s eye. This didn’t need any retroactive boost to make it memorable. It could stand on its own two legs without a rekindling of interest.

What gives it this cachet? It’s the air of melancholy that pervades the entire book. The story opens with a grieving Superman on the moon just after the infamous and oft-referenced death of Supergirl, as he’s pounding on the lunar surface, gnashing his teeth and silently cursing the injustice of it all, this untimely death of his last family member. That sets the tone. Then he’s zapped by some passing aliens and ends up in another reality, a common occurrence in the cosmic reshuffling that was the Crisis.

This detours us to one of the side-reasons that this comic was so memorable: it was also a generation’s reintroduction to Earth-Prime, the “real” Earth where DC’s heroes were fictional and Julie Schwartz et al. lived. The Flash had been the first hero to make it there back in the Silver Age (*The Flash #179 — Jovial Jared), but it was a largely dormant plot device (there are only so many times that you can go to the “character meets creator” well).  All this was confusing beyond words to my seven-year old cerebral cortex. Imagine being a kid and trying to parse the geography lesson here:

This of course dredges up the whole “Just what the hell does a map of the DC United States look like?” conundrum. I always pictured Metropolis as being somewhere in the midwest, not far from Smallville maybe, and Gotham as being in a cold northern state, maybe a Chicago proxy. But if on Earth-Prime, “our” Earth, New York is where Gotham is supposed to be, where is New York on Earth-1? And aren’t Gotham and Metropolis both New York stand-ins? BAFFLING. And if Earth-Prime is the real Earth, does that mean that the things in these comics actually happened? I’M SEVEN YEARS OLD AND SO CONFUSED ALL OVER AGAIN.

Back to the pathos. Pathos doesn’t make your head hurt.

Superman immediately reflects on how Earth-Prime is a world without superpowers, so no one is more surprised than he is to find that there’s a kid flying around in a damn Superman costume — well, actually the kid might be more surprised to find out that Superman is real:

Clark Kent of Earth-Prime, having dressed up as Superboy for a costume party (more on his name in a moment), has had till-then latent powers activated by the passing Halley’s Comet (which I looked at with my telescope as a kid — another reason to feel nostalgic kinship with this book). The two exchange pleasantries, Superboy offers his condolences for Supergirl’s death (a tender sequence), and Superman takes his leave to try to return to his reality. Despite that apparent departure, the two soon team to stop a tidal wave that threatens that beach part that Superboy-Prime had just flown away from. It’s after that that these two versions of the same man share a moment in space, with the aforementioned Halley’s Comet as a prop:

Why couldn’t we get something like this in a Superman movie? This is such a gloriously cinematic sequence, with both characters overcoming the communication difficulties of a vacuum in a most Supermanish of ways. It’s refreshingly quiet, with Maggin knowing when to back off the narration and let the words in Swan’s art do the talking. I’m probably overstating the potency of these few panels, but to me it’s one of my favorite Superman moments, with our hero in a strange world, besieged by problems, and commiserating with a fresh-faced version of himself. Love their different writing styles, too. Magnifique.

The story wraps with both Superguys repelling an alien invasion and Superboy-Prime accompanying his elder self back to Earth-1, where they’re promptly separated in a to-be-continued cliffhanger (it was the Crisis after all). But then the comic makes an odd shift, as it cycles back around to give the reader Superboy-Prime’s origin. It’s pretty similar to the one that we’re all familiar with, as the Els send their baby boy away from a dying planet, but in this reality via teleportation, not a spaceship:

Of course, he ends up with a Kent family (not Jonathan and Martha, though), and they go through the usual — but awkward in this reality – calisthenics to name him Clark:

I knew a guy once called Bruce Bruce. He would have killed to have been named Clark Kent, for whatever that’s worth.

Of course, this version of Clark grows up a clutz, teased for his name as he skins his knees, fails at sports, and wonders why his parents blighted him so. Until that magic night of the costume party alongside his Lori-Lemaris-costumed girlfriend (Laurie), when he reaches for the stars and has his dream come true:

And then he runs into Superman and the story’s circle is complete.

This comic is a sterling example of all that the pre-Crisis DC universe could be, as the wide-eyed remnants of the Silver Age were molded into more mature, more refined stories. Maggin and Swan used their deft touches to so beautifully blend the two sides of the same coin, one weighed down by sadness, the other born into a new world, and forged a comic that stood out from its sillier crossover contemporaries. Comics like this make me ache for the old Earth-1 Superman, the Kal-El of my youth, and are the way I choose to remember his last days before the John Byrne reinvention (as opposed to his last embarassing appearance in his eponymous book).

Superboy-Prime, now Superman-Prime (must have missed my invitation to his Bar Mitzvah) was an uber-villain after his re-intro, flitting from scheme to scheme (Sinestro Corps, Time Trapper, etc.) in his nutjob quest to salve his shattered psyche (not to mention the somewhat dopey return to the fourth-wall stories that defined his Earth-Prime origins, which also had returns of Laurie and his parents). I followed his reign of terror at a distance, somewhat saddened at what he became, as if he were some sort of black sheep in my family. My love for his origin comic had instilled in turn some stupid love for the kid, and a hope that he’d be able to turn it around, even though he’d decapitated people and killed the Earth-2 Superman. It takes one hell of a comic book to pull off denial like that.

Welcome Back, Kotter was on the airwaves before my TV watching days. My first encounter with this 1970s John Travolta launching pad was a decade-plus later sketch on Saturday Night Live, where an all-grown up Barbarino was hosting that show and was in a great sketch called “Quentin Tarantino’s Welcome Back, Kotter.” (A sketch worth seeing mainly for Adam Sandler’s goofy grin as Epstein during the Reservoir Dogs-inspired intro.) I recognize that the show had a following and a number of breakout characters and catchphrases, but my limited viewing of it left me cold. Sitcoms — unless their name is Honeymooners – have the hardest time holding up over time, and Kotter was/is no different.

So maybe the show isn’t up in the stratoshpere of greatest shows ever. But hey, did M*A*S*H have a comic? No. No it didn’t. And this site would be incomplete without a brief trip through the comic series’ pages.

The main reason I chose this issue (Script: Elliot (S!) Maggin, Art: Jack Sparling) over any of the other nine that formed the series’ limited run is that, within its confines, the renowned Sweathogs defy the laws of New York and gravity to play a prank on the curmudgeonly principal, Mr. Woodman. Remember in Animal House when Flounder, Bluto and D-Day put Niedermeyer’s horse in Dean Wormer’s office? Well, the boys here decide to do the same, but substitute Woodman’s car for the equine prop. You might think to yourself, “Wow, I’d sure like to know how regular teenagers could get a car into a cramped little office without the benefit of superpowers. I’m sure it was an elaborate scheme, complete with Mr. Science-ish levers, pulleys, weights and counterweights.” WRONG. You’ll find no such answers here, as Newton’s Law can apparently be disengaged at will on Earth-Kotter:

I used to work with my father — a home-builder — in the summertime, and when we’d put siding on a house he’d set up this rickety staging with ladders, braces and long wooden planks like the ones seen above. The wood had a lot of give, to put it mildly, and it always felt like I was one step away from plummeting into the welcome arms of a Worker’s Comp claim. Perhaps the planks the Sweathogs use are hewn from petrified trees. Or Woodman drives an Adobe. Whatever.

Apart from that, things follow a cookie-cutter trajectory seen in countless episodes of this show and others — sans of course the laughtrack. In addition to Horshack’s guffaws and Epstein’s notes, much of the standard situational comedy is replicated within:

IT LOOKS LIKE HE HAS BREASTS! HARHARHARHAR! (Not sure if those are typos or puns or inside jokes in there or what. I’m sure that I don’t care, though.)

I was impressed with this bit, as a catchphrase of the time was repurposed so that Kotter could essentially tell Woodman to cram it up his ass:

Ass-allusions aren’t often found in comics, especially comics from this era. Just saying.

Finally, I thought readers might like some “Sweat Hog Scratchings,” with brief bios of the cast. It would have been eerie prescience if whoever wrote these had incorporated “Will be dogged by rumors that he is gay throughout his career” in the Travolta blurb — and LOGO BORDERS MEAN NOTHING TO EPSTEIN’S UNTAMABLE HAIR:

I’ll give Sparling – who did adaptations as disparate as Adam-12 and The Dirty Dozen – his due for providing reasonable likenesses of the familiar faces of the show. Barbarino’s gigantic mug looked like Travolta’s gigantic mug, for whatever that’s worth. And Maggin, credited without the S! here, does what he can in giving the world of James Buchanan High a degree of Riverdale elan. Problem is, I just don’t care that much about the source material. Others who were around to enjoy the show on its first run around the block might feel differently. If so, mazel. Go with God.

There. Welcome Back, Kotter. Done and done.

Wondering what

TITLE: The Double-Or-Nothing Life of Superman

CREDITS:
Writer: Cary Bates & Elliot S! Maggin
Art: Curt Swan & Bob Oksner
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Publisher: DC Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Superman I know – but why is his suit empty? And who are these guys surrounding him?

IMPRESSIONS: Evidently, Superman’s next-door neighbor is an alien. But not a nice one, like Superman is. He’s the sort who is planning an invasion or something and has gone about it in a ridiculously roundabout way – somehow he’s found a way to remove Superman’s powers whenever he changes to Clark Kent. Superman has decided to test this out by spending an entire week only as Clark, then a week only as Superman. After his time is up, he’s about to decide on which life to stick with full-time (for some reason), when his alien adversary rounds up nine of – as Superman puts it, “the most fearsome super-villains [he’s] ever fought!” I don’t know about how fearsome they are. Lex Luthor, sure. The Parasite and Brainiac look pretty formidable too, and I’m sure I can understand why he’d be afraid of someone named Kryptonite Man. But we’ve got a dwarf in a derby hat called Mr. Mxyzptlk, a chubby guy in a plaid coat called the Prankster, a weirdo called the Toyman, a goofy cowboy called Terra-Man, and someone named Amalak who doesn’t do much but stand around looking purple. (A lot of Superman’s enemies seem dedicated to a purple-and-green color scheme for some reason. Five of the nine wear those colors exclusively, and only Toyman doesn’t have any of them at all.)

Anyway, Superman goes out to round up these guys in a fashion that comes so easily one must seriously question how tough the rest of the criminals in Metropolis are, if these are the most fearsome of the bunch. Then we get an explanation for Superman’s power loss that makes you wonder why the hell it took him three weeks to figure it out, and then he beats the alien using an even more convoluted series of events.

There’s a bold proclamation on the first page of the issue: “The greatest hero the world has ever known in his most magnificent adventure of all time!” I’m hoping this was mere hyperbole, because as far as adventures go, this wasn’t particularly magnificent. I understood this just fine. That didn’t make it less silly.

GRADE: C

For those that don’t know, Maggin is probably the best Superman writer ever. People tend to defend comics by making them out to be a sort of twentieth century mythology but Maggin — more interestingly in my opinion — wrote Superman as if it were a twentieth century fairy tale. If you’re curious about what the difference is, read some old Superman comics.

Better yet, read his incredibly cool novels, The Last Son of Krypton — also known as the Superman The Movie adaptation (that has nothing to do with the movie) and Miracle Monday. It’s in the latter that Superman battles and defeats Satan. Yes, he battles and defeats Satan. It’s pretty crazy.

I wrote a short review of Miracle Monday a few years ago. It’s totally worth reading if you ever see it. Here are five ridiculously cool things from Miracle Monday I pointed out in my earlier review.

1. The first chapter, Thanksgiving, is a perfect short story about Superman. I wish more people concerned about Superman would read it. You can read it, the whole book actually, at Superman Through the Ages. Oh, and if Plato can be concerned with children reading stories about Achilles or Odysseus you should be concerned with Superman.
2. Superman sees Kirlian auras. He can tell if someone is healthy, sick, innocent or guilty by the color of their aura.
3. The first time Superman gets sick. A young Clark Kent is a passenger on a bus that hits and kills a dog. The idea that he was somehow involved in the death of a living thing puts Superboy into a day long fever.
4. Lex Luthor proves the existence of the Soul and, by inference, the existence of God. What does he do with this information? Why, he uses it to escape from prison, of course.
5. Everyone has a demon, a particular obsession that prevents them from fulfilling their true purposes and potential; alcohol, stamp collecting, whatever. Superman’s demon is Clark Kent, the character he invents because he’s too afraid to relate to the world as he is. He even gives Clark a demon: videotaping funny commercials and showing them to his friends.

Quick Rating: Great

Over 270 of the most memorable Superman covers of all time!

Art: Alex Ross, Ed McGuinness, Matt Wagner, Neal Adams, Curt Swan, Joe Schuster, Walt Simonson, Leinil Francis Yu, Jim Lee, John Byrne and hundreds of the greatest Superman artists of all time
Commentary: Grant Morrison, Jeph Loeb, Mark Verheiden, Mark Waid, Elliot S! Maggin, Murphy Anderson, Al Plastino, Jim Mooney, Nick Cardy, Bryan Singer, Richard Donner, Jack Larson, Erica Durance and more
Collected Edition Editor: Robert Greenberger
Senior Art Director: Robbin Brosterman
Publisher: DC Comics

The follow-up to last year’s popular Batman: Cover to Cover, this handsome hardcover volume collects over 270 of the most memorable covers featuring Superman since the character’s first appearance back in Action Comics #1. Note that I say here “most memorable,” not “best” – while a great many of the covers included here are magnificent works of art (Alex Ross’s work on Superman: Peace on Earth and Kingdom Come #4, for example), many others aren’t quite as powerful from a purely aesthetic sense, but still deserve a place for honor for what they represent. Several covers from the Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane series are included to demonstrate how a bizarre cover, such as Superman standing by the graves of Lois, Lana Lang and Lori Lemaris, would entice a reader to grab the issue.

The book is divided up into several segments, each showcasing a different aspect of the man of steel – one section focuses on his relationship with Lois, another on the members of his extended family, one on Metropolis and one on Krypton, a section of patriotic covers and a section devoted entirely to his team-ups with other superheroes. The book is divided into over 20 such categories, and looking at the list it’s hard to think of any aspect of the character that isn’t covered somewhere.

In addition to the sections focusing on the different aspects of Superman, several times some of the writers, artists and other people most associated with Superman take a page to present their personal favorite Superman cover, and those covers are usually placed in the category they most belong. Classic artist Nick Cardy, for example, chooses his cover to Justice League of America #102, where Superman stands on a hilltop and announces that one of the assembled members of the Justice League and Justice Society must die to save the world. This powerful cover is, appropriately, placed in the “World’s Finest” chapter, which includes Superman’s great team-ups. Brandon Routh, who plays Clark and Superman in the upcoming Superman Returns film, chooses the simple but elegant Ron Frenz cover to Superman Vol. 2 #120 – a classic image of Superman bursting through chains with the entire cover colored green except for the S-shield. This is included in a section of covers selected for their clever and innovative graphic design qualities.

By the very nature of this project, not everyone will agree with the final covers selected. Everybody will have their own favorite covers that may not be included, and they’ll come across a few they may think less than deserving of inclusion – but the art by its very nature is selective. Most readers will be hard-pressed to argue this isn’t, overall, a very entertaining collection of iconic and eye-popping Superman images. This is a book that every Superman fan needs to have on his coffee table.

Rating: 9/10

August 12, 2004

Quick Rating: Fair
Title: Crisis on 2 Worlds & Two Worlds

The Julius Schwartz tribute series continues with two new tales of Adam Strange!

Writer: Elliot S! Maggin & Grant Morrison
Pencils: J.H. Williams III & Jerry Ordway
Inks: J.H. Williams III & Mark McKenna
Colors: Jose Villarrubia & Sno Cone
Letters: Todd Klein & Rob Leigh
Editor: Peter Tomasi
Cover Art: Alex Ross (based on a cover by Carmine Infantino & Murphy Anderson)
Publisher: DC Comics

This issue marks the second week of the DC Comics Presents tribute to the late, great Julius Schwartz. In case you didn’t get the memo, DC decided to honor Schwartz by taking one of his classic tricks – hand a writer a crazy comic book cover and make them write a story to match it. DC is doing remakes of some of Julie’s classic covers, in this case Mystery in Space #82, a cover featuring one of my old favorites, the universe-traveling Adam Strange.

I’m not expecting any brilliant comics out of this game, but I’m expecting a lot of fun. Unfortunately, this week’s issue isn’t quite as entertaining as the Batman issue last week. The opening story, by Maggin with art by J.H. Williams III, stars Adam with special guest-stars Ralph and Sue Dibney (irony, thy name is Schwartz). The Zeta-Beam scheduled to whisk Adam off to Rann instead takes a young boy and a zebra. In the meantime, his alien technology has fallen into the wrong hands here on Earth. This is a decent, if not brilliant tale, but Williams’ gritty art style is terribly unsuited for the bright Strange and even brighter Elongated Man. He’s a good penciller, but he belongs on a darker tale and not a zany silver age pastiche.

In Grant Morrison’s story, Adam is captured by a group of guerrilla fighters planning to hijack the next Zeta Beam and invade Rann. They have found a way around the fact that only Adam’s unique cellular structure reacts with the Zeta Beams (but wait – didn’t the last story hinge on a kid and a zebra getting zapped? Oh well…), and they are armed to the teeth. The story has promise, but Morrison, as he sometimes does, gets way too experimental with it. He cuts from scenes of Adam on Rann to scenes of him chained up, meanwhile narrating the story with captions that barely relate to the scenes at all but instead just offer a glowing tribute to Julie Schwartz.

The artwork is much more appropriate in this second tale. I personally think Ordway’s pencils look the best when he does his own inks, but Mark McKenna does a good job. Sno Cone’s colors add to the story as well, employing a different color scheme for the Rann scenes and the Earth scenes, and coloring the captions in with classic four-color dots. It’s a nice look.

With any anthology series like this one, you’re going to have to expect hits and misses. Batman was a hit, and this one was a miss. A near miss, but a miss nonetheless. Still, the concept is sound and a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to the rest of these specials.

Rating: 6/10

Today’s Thrift Store Find is pretty geeky, so get ready for some nerd background:

DC Comics’ Kingdom Come was a four-issue comic miniseries which posited a dark future for the superheroic DC Universe and all its’ characters. This future was predicated on the idea that at some point in the not-so-distant future, Superman decides to give up being Superman. Supes leaves the world at large in the hands of superheroes who had neither the ethics or the heart of the original DC superheroes.

Designed as a critique on the excess of the comic book industry in the 1990′s wherein any book starring a gun-toting, grim and gritty antihero would rake in the dough, Kingdom Come is one of the best Superman stories told in the last 20 years. Conceptualized and painted by Alex Ross, Kingdom Come featured Ross’ trademark “realistic”, detailed depiction of superheroes. Longtime comics’ writer Mark Waid worked with Ross to provide the story. Seen through the eyes of a common pastor, the big guns of the DC Universe are brought to life and into conflict with one another in a truly impressive story that gets at the core of what exactly makes Superman so super.

Kingdom Come was a tremendous success for DC Comics, and as such, the company has exploited that success with a variety of spin-offs. Some of them were very good (the recent Justice Society of America Story “Thy Kingdom Come“) and some of them were a bit iffy in their reason for being (1999′s mini-series The Kingdom). DC also went so far as to commission a novelization of the comic series… which, if you haven’t guessed yet, I ran across at our St. Vincent DePaul a few weeks ago.

Adapted by Elliot S Maggin, the Kingdom Come novelization strikes me as less a novel unto itself and more of a bonus feature for those who enjoyed the comic series enough to read almost 400 pages of story retread from a slightly different point of view.

Maggin’s a notable writer in the DCU; he wrote Superman for about 15 years, from the 1970′s on through the mid 1980′s. He’s very well known for his other novelized adaptions of the Man of Steel: Superman- The Last Son of Krypton is not a rewritten take on the 1978 Superman movie, but an original story featuring Superman, a novel (excuse the pun) concept at the time which quickly translated into a bestseller for Warner Books. Maggin also wrote a second Superman novel, Miracle Monday, which I’ve heard nothing but great things about. It’s one of those books I’m on the lookout for every time I walk into a thrift store.

I should mention that Maggin usually goes by the title Elliot S! Maggin when writing comics, but he’s sans exclamation point for this novel. The reason for that, I do not know. I miss the exclamation point!

As I said, I’m looking forward to reading those two Superman novels, but I’m afraid that this Kingdom Come novel is not the best showcase for any writer’s talents. The story is already so locked-in; there is very little room for Maggin to stretch his wings and do anything new or creative. You could argue that this type of book is not the venue for such creativity, and I’d be hard-pressed to argue with you.

To me, it seemed like instead of embracing that fact, Maggin went in and gave us truly unnecessary details around the edges of the book as a substitute. For example, an extended sequence where the narrator of the story, pastor Norman McCay, tells us his family has a history of premonitions like the ones he begins to experience at the beginning of the novel. This sequence is entirely too much information. It doesn’t move the plot anywhere remotely interesting, and in my own opinion, makes McCay’s acceptance of the remarkable nature of his association with the superheroes a little less dramatic than it could be.

Again, that’s my opinion. I am positive that there are legions of readers who bought this novelization precisely for those little details; it seems to be Kingdom Come’s stock in trade. In point of fact, one of the truly amazing aspects of the original comic series was artist Ross’ compendious knowledge of the DC Universe. In his hyper-realistic style, Ross inserted all sorts of “easter eggs” for the eagle-eyed fanboy and girl. A background character with no speaking lines would, if the reader was savvy enough in the ways of superhero lore, be easily identified as an elderly Captain Boomerang or Plastic Man. These hidden references were part of the fun of the Kingdom Come comic book, but part of that fun was how little attention was brought to them. You either picked them up as you read… or you didn’t. Knowing that background character with the top hat was Ross and Waid’s reimagining of Zatara would not affect your reading either way.

Prose doesn’t operate in the same fashion… or at least, the prose here does not. What could go unremarked in a wide panel and act as a small nod to continuity or character must be mentioned explicitly in a novel to give it any meaning.

If you’re interested in those extra details, I will say that Maggin’s Kingdom Come is an absolute treasure trove. As a fan of the original comic, I found all sorts of interesting bits and pieces sprinkled throughout this book. Background characters like Power Woman and The Ray are given more room to breathe, and in particular I found Maggin’s take on Kingdom Come’s version of Hawkman to be well-thought out and far more interesting than the handful of panels the character is given in the comic book. There are also many small wrinkles that Maggin’s given the chance to address that would have slowed the comic down to a screeching halt- I particularly enjoyed his explanation about why the futuristic Legion of Super-Heroes doesn’t come back and give humanity a helping hand… as well as the “death” of Clark Kent, something left entirely unaddressed in the comic.

Maggin also cleverly makes the connection between the narration device of Norman McCay, an average human being lead around invisibly by the ghostly superhero The Spectre to observe the major events of mankind and the origins of that relationship in A Christmas Carol. Several times throughout the book, Maggin drops hints and references to Dickens’ immortal holiday tale, going so far as to title one chapter “Scrooge Me Not”.

As a fan of the comic series, I enjoyed the novelization of Kingdom Come, but I cannot recommend a casual reader come in and read this cold. There’s a vital connection between the comics and the novel that Maggin exploits and I’m not sure the novel version of KC stands on its own. The paperback version of Kingdom Come features four black and white sketches of the major players (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel) from the series. I imagine extra Alex Ross artwork was another big draw for readers to this book.

This one of Superman is my favorite of the four- as a lapsed Catholic, I always appreciated how overt Ross and Waid made the comparisons between Big Blue and Jesus Christ.

The Kristin Wells Superwoman’s failure to catch on was so colossal that it was retroactive. Barely anyone remembers she ever existed. She’s the Jobriath of superheroes: not even remembered as a flop. Bad news for fans of Elliot S! Maggin…but great news for fans of Schadenfreude!

Thus far, all my reviews have been good, of Superman stories that matter a lot to me and had an impact on me. It’s high time I royally panned something, an ill-advised or unpopular addition to the Super-Mythos, and it was either DC Comics Presents Annual #2 or the story with the Supermobile.

To this day I can’t think of a greater and darkly hilarious contrast between the fanfare of a character’s first appearance and the sad obscurity they fell into afterward. Kristin Wells didn’t even appear in Crisis on Infinite Earths, a category of DC characters that includes Space Cabbie and Ultraa the Multi-Alien. None of the other Superman writers other than Maggin showed the slightest interest in using this pet character, except for a “blink and you miss it” cameo in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Personally, I think the reason Kristin Wells was so ignored was the astounding lack of humility in her debut.

On the very first page, before the character is even introduced, we’re told she’s “the greatest heroine of the 20th Century.” Please bear in mind that this is the character’s first appearance.

What. The. Hell.

Really? Even limiting ourselves to costumed powered heroes (and ignoring real-life heroines like Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart and Mother Teresa) she’s greater than Wonder Woman? Black Canary?  Zatanna? Supergirl? And on her first day?

What’s in a name?

Here’s another reason to not like Kristen Wells, as if you needed more: she’s damaging to the maturity and character development of a more important character that readers have a lot more invested in. One question I’ve always asked myself when reading Superman comics in the Bronze Age is, why is it Kara Zor-El is still Supergirl and not Superwoman? Kara was in her mid-twenties, and progressed before our very eyes from a hero-worshiping, slightly ditzy cousin to a strong woman in her own right, a solo heroine with a job, career and identity totally separate from Superman. It was a thrill to watch her grow and change in this way. So why was it she never became Superwoman?

This response to a letter in Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #4 gives the answer.

In short, it’s not their fault, but that’s a frankly, awful and alienating reason for a name to be available: the permanent retardation on character development. Anyone that uses and adopts such a name would have to proceed extra carefully, with humility, and a real effort should be made to get on the side of the audience.

Also, she’s a time traveler and her name is “Kristin Wells.” Ha ha. That’s the type of subtlety that Tony Isabella would later use when he created the totalitarian planet Georwell (groan) in Justice Machine.

Here in the Future…

The story begins in Metropolis of the year 2854, which includes New York’s Columbia University. This is a good nod to the continuity of Legion of Super-Heroes, where Metropolis is a mega-city that sprawled and made New York, Boston and other eastern seaboard cities a part of its borders (other Mega-Cities in the Legion-era include Lakopolis, a futuristic Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland, and Europolis).

Despite the idea that New York is a part of Metropolis, there is no other attempt to possibly connect Kristen Wells to the Legion or any other possible Earth-1 future like the Tornado Twins, Pol Manning or Professor Zoom, possibly on the grounds that this type of close continuity and following the rules makes Kristin Wells less of a super-special unique snowflake.

In her American History course, Professor Kristin Wells, a pixie dead ringer for Mystery Science Theater 3000‘s “Mr. B Natural,” mentions the mystery of the last secret identity, Superwoman, whose identity remains unknown. This is a truly interesting and compelling mystery, provided you’re a tapeworm from a planet where science fiction doesn’t exist. Anyone that’s even passingly familiar with science fiction should be able to guess right away what’s coming down the pipeline.

SPOILER: Yeah, it turns out to be Kristin Wells. What a shock.

Kristen Wells, in the fashion of all Mary Sues, get a job at the place where the main canon characters work. If this was Harry Potter, she’d be the “American transfer student to Hogwart’s.” She immediately attracts the attention of Jimmy Olsen, befriends Lois Lane, and Clark Kent. This is arguably the most unrealistic part of the story: the idea that a ginger would have more than one friend.

Kristen Wells discovers a Superwoman costume in a closet that belongs to Lois Lane, a costume that will eventually be worn by Superwoman. Then, in a twist of twists, discovers that Lois isn’t the person inside of it and it doesn’t belong to her. Nor is it Lana Lang or Linda Danvers’s. In fact, the costume just suddenly appeared inside Lois’s costume just for Kristen to wear.

So, my question is this: where did this costume come from in the first place? In fact, this question is ultimately never answered in the final version of the story.

The Kang Dynasty

Oh yeah, there’s gotta be some conflict in this story, right?

At this time, we come to the single most mindblowing part of this entire book: the main villain of this comic is Kang the Conqueror.

This is something so extraordinary, I find it hard to believe it hasn’t been commented on…Marvel and DC have done affectionate parody/homage versions of each other’s characters in the past, but never a villain. The name “Kosmos” is an outright homage to Kang: as all True Believers know, the Kosmos dimension (spelled just like that, with a “K”) was the area where Kang’s greatest servants, the Growing Men, are produced and created. King Kosmos is a perfectly legitimate title for Kang, since he is, after all, King of the Kosmos dimension.

And to thicken the plot a little more, this story’s artist, Keith Pollard, worked on Avengers for over two years with Jim Shooter.

In fact, the story even nudges you to believe that this guy may even be the “real” Kang himself: it deliberately states that King Kosmos came from “the future of an alternate earth” (cute!). Considering how Kang’s time travel escapades have caused him to “fold himself,” so there are dozens of “variant Kangs” throughout the timeline, and the presence of Kangs in alternate universes is already established (the Scarlet Centurion of Squadron-Supreme Earth) this isn’t impossible. The few panels we see of Kosmos’s earth were consciously identical to the scenes we’ve gotten of Kang’s conquered 40th Century. The guy’s motives and modus operandi are the same as Kang and they’ve even got the same pointy beard. The colors are Rama-Tut’s green and yellow, but what can you do?

Warning! Continuity-hound alert!

If I had to guess where King Kosmos diverged from Kang, I’d speculate somewhere between Fantastic Four Annual #2, Kang’s last appearance under the name Rama-Tut, where he saved Doom’s bacon in space, and later went to the 40th Century to rule a post-Nuclear Earth, around Avengers #23-24, when Kang was firmly established as ruler of the entire planet and permanently switched to the Kang identity. In the time in betweeen these two stories, #1) Kang conquered the Kosmos dimension, which makes his name make sense, and #2) it was stated in this comic that King Kosmos was deposed…something that didn’t happen to “mainstream” Kang, the window of opportunity for this to happen which was pretty narrow.

It’s worth pointing out that King Kosmos is relatively young, as opposed to the steel-gray haired Kang, whose midlife crisis was a big part of his characterization, which gives further evidence to a very early point of divergence. If Kang went and hid in an alternate universe, it could also explain why he escaped the vengeance of the Council of Cross-Time Kangs, who were dedicated to eliminating all the “variant Kangs.”

Incidentally, even if I’m right, this would be hardly the first “in continuity” Marvel/DC crossover. That would be Willow in Englehart’s JLA #142, who Englehart did every subtle trick in the book to convince us was actually the Celestial Madonna.

Mary Sue Saves Everybody

Naturally, as with all self-insertion characters, a situation is contrived where everyone else is neutralized or defeated so that the Mary Sue can save everyone. Since Kang is not the kind of guy that messes around, he defeats the JLA members in a humiliating single panel.

How does Kristin Wells survive, you ask? Callously indifferent to the fate of her fellow partygoers who collapse around her due to what look like torturously painful energy beams, she uses her abilities to save her own ginger hide in the nick of time.

Note she says that she is DIVERTING King Kosmos’s weapon, not absorbing it or eliminating it, and thus far the only blasts have been aimed at superhumans and not innocent bystanders. Therefore, every single person in this panel is injured as a direct result of Kristin Wells’s actions, and would have been fine otherwise. I totally failed to notice this the first time I read the story. Also bear in mind that since the blast was designed to have enough of a power level to neutralize superhumans, Kristin Wells had absolutely no reason to think anyone normal would survive it.

Kristin Wells’s heroic debut is on global television, since apparently she’s a big believer in starting small and working your way up. Anyway, she gives a Braveheart-esque speech that’s supposed to be ‘inspiring’ but instead just screams of trying too hard:

This may be a little nitpicky, but Kristin Wells technically isn’t an American. By her era, America no longer exists as an independent entity, subsumed into Earthgov and the United Planets. Her calling herself that, even if it is her heritage and background, is like a modern day Englishman calling themselves a “Norman.”

Later on, Superman awakens. After all, he may have tremendous alien invincibility and power enough to fly through suns…but he’s no Kristin Wells, after all. Notably enough, despite all of Superman’s cosmic powers, Superwoman beats him in a race.

The two do some hokey stuff with a sattellite before zipping back in time to the day after the assassination of Abe Lincoln, the assault upon which was Kosmos’s backup plan. Why does KK go back to 1865? We’re not really told but my money’s on “insane whim.” Superman and Superwoman fight Kang Immortus Rama-Tut King Kosmos before he’s forced to flee into the timeline.

Even though with her technology Kristin Wells is far better suited to catch King Kosmos, she patronizingly chooses to take a dive and let Superman defeat King Kosmos as that’s what history records happened. Gee, how gracious of her.

First: considering comics fans barely remember this story in 2010, I find it hard to believe anyone will still be talking about it in 2854.

Second: I love how they’re wondering if this is the last they’ll see of King Kosmos. Since it pretty much was.

Why Kristen Wells is a Mary Sue

Let me be clear: not a single one of these attributes, by itself, makes Kristen Wells a “Mary Sue.” Rather, it’s the combination of them.

Inspires feelings of love and devotion in the Canon characters for her;

Access to knowledge that the audience has but the characters in the story don’t (e.g. about feelings characters have for each other, secret identities, etc.);

When present, her choices and decisions drive the story and make the existing characters second fiddle to her, often through elaborately contrived situations;

A blood relation to the canon characters;

Receives unconditional love from attractive male canon characters;

Finally, she’s a redhead and has psychic powers, the hair color and power set of choice (along with Telekinesis) of most Mary Sues. This isn’t definitive, but is nevertheless a strong piece of circumstantial evidence worth mentioning.

Aftermath

Final Score: 2/10.

The art was done by the astounding Keith Pollard, and ranks as some of the best art of his career and it’s a shame that this was one of the few times a man of his talent worked on Superman. It’s hard to believe this guy simultaneously worked on Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers and Thor. He had a page per day rate that was downright Kirbyesque. This may be a personal idiosyncrasy, but considering the length of his tenure on Thor, I’ve always thought of Pollard as the definitive Mighty Thor artist, just like I’ve always thought of Bob Layton as the definitive Iron Man artist and John Romita as the definitive Spider-Man artist.

Also: feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here, but to the best of my knowledge, Keith Pollard is the only African-American (until Dwayne McDuffie) to work on Superman.

This story is irritating for the same reason that the Star Trek: the Next Generation episode with the female Q, Amanda Rogers, was irritating: it was a story all about a guest-star, told from the perspective of a guest-star, driven by the choices of a guest-star. Superman, our hero, was forced to play second fiddle. That may be the most exasperating, alienating and fanficlike thing of all.

June 26, 2006

Title: Make Way For Captain Thunder!

A goofy blast – Superman versus a Captain Marvel mock-up!

Writer: Elliot S! Maggin
Pencils: Curt Swan
Inks: Bob Oksner
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Cover Art: Nick Cardy
Publisher: DC Comics

Now here’s an oddity — Superman #276 from 1974, wherein Superman came head-to-head with… Captain Thunder? Here’s a quick history lesson — Superman was introduced in DC’s Action Comics #1 in 1938 and he immediately became the hottest thing in comics. Captain Marvel was introduced in Fawcett’s Whiz Comics #2 in 1940 and he soon became the new hottest thing in comics. Seeing similarities between the two characters, DC Comics filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement, which Fawcett fought until 1952 when a court decision declared Cap WAS infringing. As superheroes no longer had their wartime popularity, Fawcett gave up rather than continuing the fight. Ironically, DC later acquired the rights to the character from Fawcett, but by then Marvel Comics had launched its own Captain Marvel series. Eventually, Marvel won the trademark and the right to publish a comic under that title, but DC won the copyright to the original character, which is now published under the Shazam! title whenever he stars in a comic.

At any rate, in 1974 the legalities were still being worked out, which led to this bizarre comic in which Superman came face-to-face with “Captain Thunder.” Secretly Willy Fawcett (rather than Billy Batson), Captain Thunder came from an alternate Earth where young Willy gained the powers of the World’s Mightiest Mortal by rubbing his magical belt and saying the word “Thunder”, granting him powers of nature from an old American Indian Shaman rather than the wizard Shazam. Captain Thunder’s enemies, the Monster League of Evil (an analogue for the Monster Society), had placed him under a spell, though, and whenever Willy became Captain Thunder, the good Captain became a force for evil. This led to the inevitable coming to blows of Superman and Captain Thunder.

The story reads like your basic silly Silver Age collision of the heroes – Superman struggling with the mind-controlled Captain Thunder as he aided a crime spree on the streets of Metropolis, until finally he found a way to use Thunder’s own powers to send him back to his own world. It’s a rather unsatisfying ending, though, truth be told – we’re left hanging, wondering of Captain Thunder ever overcame the villains’ manipulation of his mind and became a hero again back on his own world. Of course, a few years later the real Captain Marvel returned and this issue became an amusing footnote in the history of the character. And personally, I find it particularly amusing that Captain Thunder’s emblem was changed FROM a lightning bolt into a sunburst. Wacky, wacky stuff.

Rating: 6/10

According to legend (or the back pages of issue one, whichever), Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Mark Evanier, Bill Rotsler, and Bill Warren all ended up piss-drunk at some Marvel party at the Executive Hotel during 1983′s San Diego Comic Con. Describing it as a “sauna,” they all retreated to the roof to air out a bit. While up there, Evanier suddenly came up with the idea for a year long round-robin style maxiseries between eleven DC writers and twelve DC artists, announced it, and got the ball rolling. By the time security showed up and kicked them off the roof, Dick Giordano had approved the project and the order of collaborators was set: Evanier, Wein, Doug Moench, Paul Levitz, Mike Barr, Elliot Maggin, Paul Kupperberg, Conway, Roy Thomas, Dan Mishkin, and Marv Wolfman (with Cary Bates) would write while such DC greats as Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Dave Gibbons, Giordano, Don Heck, Curt Swan, Keith Giffen, George Perez and others (goddamn!) would tackle the art.

Finally, the rules were established. Each issue would end in a near impossible cliffhanger (or five) that the next author would have to figure out how to fix. The previous author would also get to name the next issue, which would have to tie in at some point. Meanwhile, the two writers couldn’t talk to each other about the project at all. Considering that this book was pretty much a gigantic experimental exercise in comic writing, the authors started getting just plain sadistic trying to fuck each other over with titles such as “If This is Love, Then Why Do My Teeth Hurt?” and “If There’s a Hole in Reality, Is Life a Cosmic Donut?”

Writers could use any characters from the DCU with the exception of any they were writing for at the time. This led to a ton of awesome rarely-used Golden and Silver Age characters popping up such as the Space Cabby, Darwin Jones, Son of Vulcan, and Woozy Winks. Considering that between it’s conception in 1983 and it’s actual release starting in November 1985, that whole Crisis on Infinite Earths thing started making this so non-canon. As a matter of fact, this really kind of helped make DC Challenge a send off to the multiverse.

So, what’s it all about? Well, that’s a bit of a clusterfuck. A race of aliens known as the Moltanians discover that when they die their souls inhabit the bodies of demons in the netherworld. A Moltanian named Bork started the Black Counsel, whose intention was to transport the demons to both Rann and Earth, where the “fabric of reality is much thinner” (thanks to a half-melted Darkseid, apparently). The Guardians of the Universe try their damnedest to prevent it and end up hiring another Moltanian named Kaz to fix everything. Easy enough, right?

Yeah, not really. They try to fix shit by sending a bunch of the heroes to different periods in time where they think they’ll do better. Instead, the Nazis find a spaceship sent back with the Blackhawks and win World War II. Uh, hooray?

As a whole, this book suffers from that old adage “too many cooks in the kitchen.” In theory, yeah, having all these well known writers and artists on one project would be totally awesome! In practice, you get “We Are the World.” In the back of the last issue, DC Challenge‘s Robert Greenberger summed it up when he muses about how “Amazing Heroes says we’re exploitive and Comic’s Journal complains we don’t make any sense.” No shit, it doesn’t make any sense! I mean, how does Aquaman hydrate himself after getting trapped in the middle of the Sahara Desert?

Delicious, delicious vulture juice.

Granted, this book is an interesting (albeit accidental) bookend to the pre-Crisis DCU. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the finished product was as glorious as intended by those drunken rooftop comic writers. It does raise the question, though: What would happen if DiDio went ahead and gave the okay to a DC Challenge 2?

Oh, right. “We Are the World 25 for Haiti.”

Elliot S. Maggin (writer)
Irv Novick and Tex Blaisdell (artists)
The Joker #9 (1978)
Published by DC Comics

• Random Post »

1. British writer Clare Dudman whom I discovered through The Sunday Salon and her blog Keeper of the Snails.
2. A man who was at the bookstore I work this morning by name of Charles Brown.

I’ll start with Clare, because this is one I’ve been meaning to mention for a while. The book is called The Science of Dr. Who by Paul Parsons.

From the first moment she started blogging about it back in the beginning of September, I knew it would be a book I would like to read. Of course, I “grew up” on Dr. Who, especially with the inimitable Tom Baker, who to me (and to Clare, if I remember correctly) is the definitive Doctor.

For more of Clare’s thoughts on the book and an interview with Parsons when he was at a book festival, click here.

Charles, meanwhile, was at our bookstore this morning. He was in a nearby town in our county to visit his daughter and stopped by the bookstore to pick up some books to read while he’s traveling back and forth between the Aleutian Islands where he works as an engineer.

While there, he mentioned Kingdom Come by Elliot S. Maggin, based off the graphic novel by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. I’ve been getting into graphic novels lately and Charles said he thought this one fleshed out the characters even more than in the graphic novel. It involves Superman, Wonder Woman and the Justice League. Beyond that, I know little about it, except, of course, written in 1996, it takes the characters in different directions. Since I have a book called The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson being sent to me by The Literate Housewife on the condition I review it (okay, if you twist my arm , I thought the Maggin book would fit in nicely.

Activism has always appealed to me, but IMO it’s in danger of becoming a fad. Concerned about Darfur? Start a web campaign and sell t-shirts. War in Iraq? Blog about it. Even ‘real life’ protests don’t even merit a lot of coverage on the local news, at least not beyond the 30 second video segment that gets devoted to them.

So, what’s the next form of activism? Will it happen in the ‘real world’ or the virtual? And how can those of us who traffic in the world of fantasy make an impact on the ‘real’ world. (Sorry if making that distinction annoys some folks, but let’s face it, some of us need to make it.)

More on this later.