[Superman Fan Club] Reading #8 August Second Monthly Selection, Silver Age / Bronze Age Reading August 27th, 2020

[Don-El]

For our [Superman Fan Club] second reading in August, romance is in the air!!! Also…sand and juvenile delinquents…

Click here to join the Club: [Superman Fan Club]

SUPERMAN (1939-) #242 (released September 1971)

https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/book/superman-1939-242/eebc79d1-9468-4af3-929b-b5ac4181efdc/ The Ultimate Battle!!! The story of the two Supermen concludes!!!

DC Comics Presents (1978-) #7 (1979) https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/book/dc-comics-presents-1978-7/00530442-4573-4151-9b70-16849ab49f0f/ Red Tornado must come to Superman’s rescue to fend off an invading force.

…

ACTION COMICS (1938-) #315 - 316 (released August and September 1964)

https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/book/action-comics-1938-315/caed6063-d4a7-4293-88c3-38d687f7d584/

315- “THE JUVENILE DELINQUENTS FROM SPACE!” Two boys (Zigi and Zagi) from the faraway world Alpha Centauri cause trouble for the planet Earth and Superman with their super-scientific technology! Also featuring: “THE MENACE OF SUPERGIRL’S MOTHER!”

https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/book/action-comics-1938-316/00746ad8-72cf-4db6-82f9-53b77116a80e/

316- “ZIGI AND ZAGI’S TRAP FOR SUPERMAN!” Superman tracks Zigi and Zagi back to their homeworld. Plus, “SUPERGIRL’S CHOICE OF DOOM!” Zor-El has Supergirl use a Kryptonian supercomputer to project a simulation of what their future will be like if he and Allura remain on Earth.

SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN (1954-) #2 https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/book/superman-s-pal-jimmy-olsen-1954-2/30940cff-82d1-41ef-a452-8c12660202eb/

“THE FLYING JIMMY OLSEN!” Jimmy drinks a special potion from another world and gains the ability to fly.

SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE (1958-1973) #2 (1958) https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/book/superman-s-girl-friend-lois-lane-1958-1973-2/12c4a214-d004-431c-bec3-7f31dd614b6e/

“Superman’s Forbidden Room” plus 2 other stories or so, jam packed!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR YOUR PONDERING AND AMUSEMENT (spoilers of course):

1. At least two of these stories are fairly concerned about Superman’s heart. How worried are you about Silver Age / Bronze Age Superman and his romantic relationships? Is getting hitched to Lois Lane the best storyline?

2. In our Lois Lane issue this time around, what more recent Superman storyline does the Forbidden Room remind you of (if any)?

3. Did you enjoy the conclusion of the Sand Superman epic in Superman #242? Why or why not?

4. What are your favorite parts of the two part Zigi and Zagi storyline?

Please share your thoughts below as well as sharing favorite art from these classics!

And…hope to see you all at the monthly Watch a Long Wednesday September 2nd!

In September: more of the same, more of the same!!!

[msgtv]

New Old Superman to read. Awesome

[Don-El]

Entertaining stuff on many levels. Great concepts, but baked in real history / culture of those times, values etc.

While reading what is available here of Silver and Bronze Age Superman and family, I’m enjoying some sampling I’ve found on sale of Superman not available here on DC Universe, as I’ve been discussing on our club’s private chat. I really found this one pictured below an intriguing read tonight:

[AlexanderKnox]

Farewell, Sandman Superman.

Oh, and Lois just invites herself into her old dorm room. Weird.

[Don-El]

The Sandman Superman saga is a very very unique 1 year epic story that frankly just about everybody who enjoys good comic book writing and good artwork loves for so many reasons.
And now it’s time to preach to the choir:

Before I go into that more, and how it is bittersweet to be at the end of this great storyline already 8 sessions into our club, what’s challenging about this club, the puzzling reason I’ve had the reel in the entire Superman family of comics from the Silver age Bronze Age for us to sample, is that we have almost nothing from those 2 eras digitized; it’s almost like there was a great flood or some devastating fire that burned the DC Silver Age and Bronze Age library to the ground in a pile of sad ashes.

This snapshot of our club’s reading tracker shows the bizarre gap of like hundreds of issues from the start of the Silver age to the end of the Bronze Age.

Yet this 25 year+ era is so culturally and historically significant, publishing through a time of extreme social turmoil in America, plus so many wonderful story lines from Grand Morrison, Dan Jurgens and so many others have come from the wild concepts of the imaginary " this could happen but hasn’t quite yet" storylines of the mid-50s through the early 80s, like the red and blue Superman, the whole thing about Superman’s secret “memento” room for Lois, all that.

[Don-El]

125 issues digitized out of 714 Superman (1939- ) published, a trifling 17.5%.

I’m personally certain the reason for this is that there hasn’t been a viable Superman motion picture since digitizing comics really came into vogue for DC in particular.

For fun, I’m going to go see what percentage of comics from the original Batman run and the original Wonder Woman run have been digitized.

Wonder Woman (1942) 177 issues on DC Universe out of 329, 53.8%.

Batman (1940) 532 issues here available out of 714, 74%.

[msgtv]

Wonder if a successful Superman Lois tv show will spur more digital issues. I know Batman sells so can’t blame them for that, but we also get the off the beaten track titles too, so you would think there would be more room for Superman. My other puzzle is Sgt Rock. I know there’s a market and no digital issues from his original run of 30 years.

[msgtv]

Very much enjoyed this selections Lois Lane comic, more so than the last one. Here, the seemed to set Lois up a couple of times to be selfish, easily dipped or irrational, but in each case she flips the script and comes across not so much as the love struck “girl” reporter but as someone smarter and more empathetic.

With this cover, you’re thinking Superman is messing with Lois or mind controlled or something.

But Lois goes straight to defending the “plain” girl. Though it would have been nice if instead of saying the other girls were snobs, she had said they were nuts you’re beautiful just the way you are. But, in any case Lois does right by Polly.

The ‘let’s dupe silly Lois’ plot not only goes nowhere cuz the girl’s got brains, but then she totally throws shade at Superman thinking she needed his help.

[Don-El]

Very entertaining stuff with some nice plot twists for sure, @msgtv . I’ve purchased Lois Lane 50’s and 60’s comics mainly for their provocative covers, and wow are there some doozies that aren’t digitized, lol, but the interior storylines are often top-notch as well.

There’s something about the bulky way Superman is portrayed as he is shown flying in the room in the panel you have posted above as well, classic Silver Age proportions. I always think of Wayne Boring as the artist when I see him drawn that way.

[AlexanderKnox]

Well, it’s not quite the Superman vs. Ali fight, but…

[Don-El]

Maybe he was just warming up for it.

I wonder if there’s any talk of bringing Zigi and Zagi back to DC Comics? They’re definitely hep and groovy!

[msgtv]

Gleepers, @AlexanderKnox wants more Zigi and Zagi!? The trouble causing imps may be entertaining, but gosh they are a handful.

Now Zvra, she’s a different story entirely. She needs to convince Superman he can have a marriage and a career. Though Supes was cool to get her true love back for her. He’s a better man than I.

Yeah, Superman get this alien children and their “science” out of school. Science in school is just disruptive.

Enjoyed the entire selection this week. Jimmy’s stories were fun and the ‘tricks’ in the story were straight from the Silver Age, but not really cheats because you could figure them out. And I don’t think there’s a backup Supergirl story I haven’t liked yet. Just shows, you can still be hight entertained by this era’s storytelling.

[Don-El]

Thanks for sharing @msgtv . One of the big reasons I expanded what we would read beyond just Superman-specific Silver Age / Bronze Age titles to also include his Superfamily of friends like Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane and team up comics was the surprising quality of these very first Linda (Lee) Danvers Supergirl stories and how interestingly these antiquated late 50s / early 60s stories and characters have been reflected in the CW Series etc now.

[msgtv]

it’s surprising to me that these Supergirl stories, which really feel like they were directed to girls in their themes and conflicts (boys, parent issues) are as interesting as they are.

[Don-El]

There was a sale as usual this past weekend with the site that I talk about in the club chats on occasion, and this time around it was hard cover archive type books at 50% off. Among the sale books was a collection of the very earliest Superboy stories in hardcover. I was tempted but frankly I really don’t think those are going to be nearly as good as these ones with Supergirl. … So I went with the Golden Age Hawkman collection instead, lol.

This book reprints Superboy’s earliest adventures in More Fun comics and Adventure comics, most of which have never before been reprinted.

Review of earliest Superboy (published in 2010) collection:
“The stories are a great look at the original concept of Superboy. The Superboy I grew up with, during the Silver Age, was a teenager, but he is no teen here - he celebrates his tenth birthday in one of the stories! The concept of Smallville has not yet emerged - Clark lives on the outskirts of Metropolis, and Ma and Pa Kent are pretty much cyphers.”

[Don-El]

Time to archive this reading and move on to Reader #9. Any final reflections on this shimmering of the distant past of Superman and his friends?