Superman Family

May 24, 2020

Superman Family

Superman hasn’t always been the most interesting character to me. He was just THERE, and being the most powerful person in the room wasn’t endearing.

It didn’t help that no one really did much with him. The Clark-Lois-Superman love triangle, always having to rescue Lois or Jimmy, never really beating Luthor...it fell flat. Aside from his introduction in 1938, he really wasn’t used to push the medium forward. If someone wanted to do something artistically groundbreaking for superhero comics, they went to Batman. And that’s a shame (though as a Batman fan, that worked out really well for me).

Then Crisis on Infinite Earths happened. It was many years before I was able to read it, but that gave us Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? as the final Pre-Crisis Superman story. Moore’s work doesn’t always work for me, but when it does, it’s breathtaking. Whatever Happened, and For the Man Who Has Everything are truly inspired works. And that was really the last time anything interesting happened to Superman until he “died”.

OK, not entirely true. John Byrne’s Man of Steel came out hot on the heels of Crisis, and redefined Superman for a new era. He brought Martha and Jonathan Kent back to life, which was probably the best decision ever made. More recently in Geoff Johns’ & Gary Frank’s Superman: Secret Origin, Jonathan Kent was killed much in the same way he was in the 1978 movie. I don’t agree with that choice. Overall, both Byrne’s and Johns’ leave me cold.

In 1992, a year after I started reading comics, there was a great crossover in all the Super-books called Panic in the Sky. Brainiac had taken over War World and was on his way to enslave/destroy Earth. Well, this story had everything, and it included damn near every superhero in the universe. Where the Justice League books failed to introduce me to the greater DCU, Superman succeeded. But the Clark still hadn’t won me over, and was a while before he could get the chance.

Shortly after PitS!, news of the upcoming Death of Superman began to spread, and the only comic shop within 40 miles of me stopped carrying comics. They became exclusively sports memorabilia sellers, and the company slowly bled to death. I missed out on the whole damn thing. Astonishingly, another shop started up just before the Reign of the Supermen began, and I was hooked until it ended. For a time, I followed the adventures of Superboy and Steel, the two breakout characters from RotS. Supergirl only got a miniseries at the time (of course I read it).

In 1996, there was a renaissance blooming at DC Comics. In the Superman corner, we got the Elseworlds story Kingdom Come. Fully painted photorealistic art in which you could feel Superman breathe, and a story about what happens when heroes fail to do the right thing and what it costs to repair the damage.

I should probably mention The Wedding Album. It’s not groundbreaking in a creative sense, but damn, after 60+ years, Lois & Clark finally get married.

Soon the JLA got a dramatic reboot by Grant Morrison with all the expected A-list characters and Superman leading the way. By issue 25, we got the mind-bending science fiction DC One Million story, taking place in the 853rd century, where Superman is alive and well, living in the Sun. At the same time, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale told an origin-adjacent story about Clark growing from a teenager to being a Superman For All Seasons.

Superman 2000 was a proposal for the monthly books that ultimately didn’t happen because an editor believed that it was the character that sold the books, not the creative teams...and boy, was he just fucking wrong. So for a great while, Metropolis held little interest for me. But out of S2K, two fantastic works were born a few years later:

1) Superman: Birthright. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the definitive origin story. This is where the line “on my world, the S means hope” comes from.

2) All-Star Superman. There’s nothing I can say about Grant Morrison’s work that hasn’t already been said by people more articulate than I. Seriously, it’s probably the best Superman story ever told.

2004 saw the release of Busiek & Immonen’s Secret Identity. Taking place in “the real world” where Superman comics and media exist, a kid in Kansas named Clark Kent finds out he has powers far beyond those of mortal men.

In 2006, Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale masterfully tell a story from the perspective of a massive chunk of Kryptonite. From the destruction of Krypton, landing on Earth, being traded as an exotic commodity by the wealthy, to Superman’s first encounter with this strange stone.

I wish that Greg Rucka’s run on The Adventures of Superman were more readily available. I don’t have all the issues in print, and they aren’t available on ComiXology except for the issues leading into Infinite Crisis, which is a shame.

Geoff Johns was Richard Donner’s assistant for a while. I guess he thought the director’s Superman movie was as perfect as you can get, and he’s really not wrong from a Pre-Crisis perspective. 2009s Secret Origins has a Clark Kent drawn to look like Christopher Reeve. It’s creepy. This version is not my favorite.

Strangely enough, John's Superboy in Adventure Comics was almost refreshing. It was decent enough that we got a new (albeit shortlived) Superboy series by Jeff Lemire.

It’s regrettable that the 2011 line-wide revamp “New 52” produced such lackluster comics. I can’t even recommend Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics, and I usually prefer to inject GMozz directly into my veins.

Supergirl: Being Super...is a genuinely touching book and has a similar feel to Birthright. I can’t recommend it enough.

DCs Rebirth in 2016 brought the Post-Crisis Lois, Clark, and son Jonathan into the New52 universe. The New52 Superman sacrificed himself for, uh, reasons (I haven’t read it). N52 Lois and Lana Lang become Superwomen. It’s a good read.

Currently, I’m enjoying Brian Michael Bendis’ stories. They’re fun so far. I’m a trade-waiter for this and Greg Rucka’s Lois Lane series. Matt Fraction’s Jimmy Olsen book is a mandatory monthly purchase (two issues left as of this writing).

Oh, one more. Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang. It’s geared towards kids, so the Man of Steel is not melting these evil people with his heat vision the way I would. But it’s a touching tale that everyone should read, based on the old radio show. At the end of the book, there’s a lot of historical context about systemic racial inequality in America, and about the author’s own experiences.

Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (& For the Man Who Has Everything)

https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Whatever-Happened-Man-Tomorrow-ebook/dp/B00CHVLUI6/

Man of Steel

https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Man-Steel-Vol-1-ebook/dp/B00B7TM55G/

Panic in the Sky!
https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Panic-Sky-Adventures-1986-2006-ebook/dp/B01EZG32D6/

The Death of Superman volumes 1-5
https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Death-2016-Dan-Jurgens-ebook/dp/B01DUTBP5Q/

https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Funeral-Friend-Death-ebook/dp/B01DUTBP3S/

https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Reign-Supermen-Death-ebook/dp/B01DUTBP8S/

https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Return-Death-ebook/dp/B01DUTBP42/

https://www.amazon.com/Superman-Doomsday-Death-ebook/dp/B01DUTBP1A/

Supergirl
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JKJTXCL

Steel
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JK9K9MG

Superboy

https://www.amazon.com/Superboy-Book-Trouble-Paradise-1994-2002-ebook/dp/B077XJJ1NM/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JJZCPTG

Kingdom Come & The Kingdom
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q6224DN

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YL8XZPK

JLA

Get A Midsummer's Nightmare first, then JLA vols 1-7 (8 & 9 are...not quite recommended). The Essential Edition of New World Order and Deluxe Ed. of Tower of Babel are already in the aforementioned volumes, it's not worth double dipping.